Half the Perfect World
by Alchemechanist
Summary: It had been four months since he had had a call from her. They said she was busy. And when she finally found him she said otherwise. And he ran with her before the People could kill them all for an act she had not committed. A new life was to be built.
1. Prologue

**This will be one of two author's notes (which I hate, but they're necessary) in the story; at the beginning and end. At the top of every chapter there will be a content advisory stating what is in the chapter that you should be aware of. This story is borderline mature, so be aware of what you're reading before you read it. I'd like to thank The One Called Demetra for helping small edits to the greater story through her Artemis Fowl Anti-Guide — if you don't live under a rock, and especially if your story has been reviewed and probably flamed by her, you should know what I'm talking about. This is not my first fan fiction — rather something like the 20th — but it is my first to post on .  
**

**Disclaimer: Really, if Mr. Colfer gets all sniffy and ruffled about me writing about his characters, he can trace my computer and find that I'm in Texas, not Ireland.**

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Prologue 

The world was deathly quiet. Silence reigned, and everything moved sluggishly, as if someone had hit the slow-motion button on life. Yet despite the silence and the slow moving picture, she was more alert than she had ever been in her life as the first heel of her stiletto connected soundlessly to the brushed steel of the shuttle port.

The first pair of eyes turned slowly to the unauthorized shuttle, smoking from the speed it had been flown at the underground city. Her own eyes gazing through thick lashes, she watched, uninterested, as the pupils dilated with the widening of the eyes, and the eyebrows raised, and the lips parted. A hand reached for the intercom, and she stalked slowly past as the elf raised it to her mouth, shouting frantically. She made no move to stop the action, knowing there was no need. It had been stopped hours before the speakers had been yelled into. Everything had been stopped.

The elf's shout rang soundlessly through the silent halls, causing more attention to be drawn, and slowly, ever so slowly, heads turned. Her legs strode and her heels cracked with the delayed rhythm life had been ever since she had made the decision to take revenge for someone who no longer could take it for themselves. Neutrinos were whipped, slowed and graceful, from holsters, all pointed towards her.

But surprisingly, her lips, painted red as the blood that had spilled over the cold, unforgiving concrete, curled upwards into a smiled. Not a smile of happiness, but of danger, of malice, of pain. Of deadly anger.

More silent shouts passed through the space, echoing in their quiet vibrations that shook the very air she breathed. Guns, thrown useless to the floor, stopped by what she had done. What she had prepared in order to make sure she could pull it off.

Seven death traps.

People ran, their strides slow, as if they were running through water, through molasses. They ran away, their screams unheard by her ears, their calls for help futile.

Cowards, her lips whispered, silently, slowly.

Her heels his the pavement as she left the station behind, along with her life, love, and the world as she knew it. People saw her face, saw the danger flaming in her mismatched eyes, saw the message warning them.

Don't stop me.

It was amazing, what with the force she threw the doors open, that the sound remained devoid of reality, unheard and uncared for. Necks snapped, heads turned, and more guns pointed to her, so slowly that she could analyze the fear and anger on each face. But no anger they had could match what she had experienced; not anymore, of course, but at one time.

But the people dropping useless guns, panicking, shouting silently, They were nothing. They didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the end of the road she was on.

She smiled again as chaos prevailed around her; papers flew, and smoke filled the air as her preset smoke bombs exploded, slowed enough for her to watch unfurl from their little nucleus.

It would have been funny at one point to know that their own defenses were being used against them.

She turned her last corner and with a brush of the hand closed the heavy steel door behind her. He looked up, as slow as everyone else, at the slam she could not hear, and his eyes widened slowly at what she knew he saw; a beautiful, entrancing woman in leather, her legs completely bare, her shoulders, back, and arms naked as well. She knew he sat stunned at her painted face; the red lips, the smoky eyes, the coppery hair blowing slightly in the non-existent breeze.

But despite the malice in her stance, despite the danger in her otherwise expressionless face, she knew the reason behind the evident fear was the stolen human gun she held, loaded and cocked, in her right hand.

She couldn't hear his pleas as she raised the gun to the level of his chest, but read them as his lips slowly formed the words.

"No!" He stood, and though it must have been a rapid motion, the slowing of time that had been present since she had first set foot in what had once been her home made it slower, the cup of pens falling and scattering, the chair flying back into the wall, the fingers scrabbling for a working communicator… All delayed, all slow. All quiet.

"Holly!" Not anymore, she thought without emotion. Not since you destroyed her, you bastard, you son of a bitch. Not since one world ended. Not since another carried on.

"Please!" And as he shuffled weight from foot to foot, as he raised and held out his hands as if to stop her, as he tried to decide what to do, he had the nerve, the idiocy, the deranged idea to plead with her. Maybe at one time she would have bowed and given in like a good solider, a good puppet, but not anymore.

"No."

One.

He looked down as if he were surprised, as if he had the right to be surprised, at the blood that had begun to flow down his chest.

Two.

It was accompanied with vibrations in the air as he silently groaned. A hand, flung out to steady himself on the desk, as he began his slow descent.

Three.

Eyes wide, scarlet overriding the green he wore, arms failing to support him. Refusing to fall, he flung himself slowly backwards, teeth gritted against pain, though not enough. Not enough to be what he deserved.

Four.

He hit the wall behind his desk, and fell into his waiting chair, splattering it with his blood, covering his chair, his desk, his office and everything else he had worked so hard for with the color of his demise. He raised his head, slowly, ever so slowly, and then brought his eyes to meet hers.

Five.

He convulsed, his body shuddering in spasms and giving weak thrashes as the life began to fade, slowly, slowly, from his dilated, reddened eyes. His fingers groped for anything that could bring him back, hold him to the world, anything to sustain his reality for a second more. So much for his dreams, his hopes, his wishes. He deserved worse than he had gotten.

Six.

Blank eyes stared in dead disbelief at Holly Short as the door flew open and officers poured in, pushing her to the ground, which she hit with deafening silence, knowing that they would kill her for what she had done, but she had done it. All she could do now was get away and run. Run until her life ended.


	2. Chapter 1

**CONTENT: none**

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Chapter One: In the Morning

Artemis's eyes opened to the stillness of early morning. He squinted in the sunlight, unaware the golden sheen cast upon his face, and let a small smile flicker on his lips. It wasn't often that he allowed himself the luxury of waking up without an alarm or the hanging threat the world's demise hanging over his head, and he found huge gratification in his thick down comforter keeping his body warm against the cool breeze wafting in from the exquisitely designed French doors leading out to the balcony.

He sighed softly as a bird sang in the tree just outside from his windows, knowing that the day would force him to get out of his bed and work. But his time for relaxation was precious, and so he chose to sinfully ignore the fact that eventually Butler would wonder if he had either died during the night or been kidnapped, and he would be forced out of his paradise by a crashing of expensive cherry wood doors.

Better not to exaggerate, you ignoramus, he chastised himself. If you exaggerate, your mind will turn to purée and you will find yourself falling into the world of dramatic mush.

He made a small sound of disgust and threw off his blankets, shivering as the breeze raised goose bumps on his skin. Normally he wore very dignified pajamas to sleep in, but the night prior to his sleeping has been too hot to wear anything but boxer shorts. He mussed his hair, noting that it was getting shaggy and making a mental note to get Juliet to cut it for him, and then opened his closet. Suits lined one whole side, and slacks and casual shirts lined another. The rest was devoted to other items of dress.

"Casual," he murmured to himself, selecting a burgundy silk shirt and black slacks. "I am definitely not in the mood for a suit." He glanced back into his room, where sunlight was beginning to stream into the windows, and chose a pair of casual black loafers to complete his ensemble before dressing.

Artemis took a quick look in the mirror, finger-combed his hair, and then faced his door. "Rise, Artemis," he sighed. "Greet the day."

He grimaced and pulled his door open, stepping into the hall and noting that the house was quiet, as far as he could hear. Butler was sure to be awake, however, and so Artemis began his trek to the kitchen in search of food, having skipped dinner for research the night before.

"Good morning," Butler greeted him the moment he set foot in the newly renovated kitchen. "It's 8:00. You slept late."

"An uncommon luxury," Artemis lamented. "How little I get them."

Butler chuckled. "Look around you."

"Oh, don't even start on the 'Do you know how lucky you are' speech. It's rather tiring to listen to you monologue about something of utter unimportance."

"Why, Artemis," Butler said in mock offense, handing him a bowl of freshly sliced fruit, granola, and organic yogurt. "If you think that what I have to say is unimportant than there is something very wrong with the way you perceive life."

Artemis scoffed, stabbing through a slice of mango. "You sound like that Oprah woman my mother is always raving about."

"Thank you. I try."

Artemis's eyes twinkled as he gazed up at his bodyguard, smiling as he held a piece of kiwi to his mouth. "You're in a very good mood this morning."

"As are you."

"Thinking of taking the day off for a change?"

"I could tell the moment you came down that the great outdoors was calling to you."

"Dear God, please don't tell me you're going to make me go camping again. It was an utterly traumatic experience."

"That was completely your father's idea, and for the twins' benefit." Butler smiled, the edges of his eyes crinkling. "But you should get out more often."

"I was considering letting the research go for a day; it's simply too beautiful outside to spend glaring at a computer screen."

Butler laughed. "A year ago I would have been appalled to hear you say that."

"Times change, old friend."

"Indeed they do." Butler raised an eyebrow. "You've been using the gym."

Artemis raised an eyebrow in a display of indignity, though a light blush was evident on his cheeks. "I most certainly have not!"

"Yes, you most certainly have," Butler replied, straightening up from his leisurely position on the kitchen island. "Roll up your sleeve and flex. Come on."

Artemis scowled and did as he was asked. Butler poked at the pathetic excuse for muscle he had built up. What he found funny was that it was far more muscle than Artemis had ever had.

"So. Who are you trying to impress?"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Artemis scoffed. "That is so pubescent, so juvenile. I would never go to all that work to impress someone, namely, as I am sure you are thinking, a girl." He yanked down his sleeve, gazing cynically up at Butler. "I am simply trying to make your job easier."

Butler raised an eyebrow, smirking at his charge. "Believe me, Artemis, you won't be incapacitating someone who would go to the effort to have you killed with those muscles."

Artemis scowled. "I'm working on it, all right?"

"Do you even know how to throw a punch?"

"Of course I do. Like so," Artemis said reproachfully, and clumsily threw his fist through the air in the loosest definition of a punch. Butler laughed, and then bid a good morning to Angeline Fowl as she walked sleepily into the kitchen.

"Good morning Butler, Arty," she said, smiling. "Why must you wake so early every morning? It's so draining to see you awake at this hour." She took the cup of steaming coffee Butler offered her and sat down next to her eldest son. "Isn't it simply wonderful outside?"

"Yes," Artemis said absently, twirling his fork. "Beautiful."

"I was thinking of taking a walk with the twins and your father this morning," Angeline continued. "Would you care to join us?"

"Perhaps," Artemis replied.

"It would be lovely." Angeline ran a hand through Artemis's hair, smiling fondly. "Your hair is getting longer. It's very becoming."

"I expect I will be cutting it soon. It is quite vexing to have to constantly move it out of the way."

"I suppose I can't tell you what to do, can I?" Angeline sighed, and smiled, a little sadly, at her eldest. "You're growing up too fast."

The moment would have been nice if it had lasted, but of course the twins insisted on barreling down the stairs and jumping around Butler demanding breakfast. It was an incredible thing, life, Artemis thought with a small smile as the boys frolicked around the kitchen, their shrill voices, halfway between babies and children, each the opposite of the other. Life was so fragile, and yet to deceptively amazing, so detailed and complex and just perfect. What more could he want than to be here with his family and his lifelong friend, wasting the day away in play and laughter?

Knowing there was a blatant and obvious answer staring him in the face that was not the desired answer of "Nothing could possibly be better than this," Artemis grumbled under his breath and tossed back a little too much water, coughing violently for his efforts to distract his mind.

Once he had quailed Butler's automatic looks of concern he returned to the train of thought he had tried in vain to stop. What more did he want than what he had? The world, to begin with, a sardonic voice in his head muttered, but he knew that while at one point in his life he would have said it seriously it certainly wasn't the case now. He knew he wanted excitement, and he wanted adventure and challenge like he had had whenever the world needed saving and the LEP called on him for help. That desire had until very recently been quenched due to his relief to having his family safe and healthy after his stint back in time, but for a couple of weeks he had noticed a feeling not unlike that of an itch; at first he had chalked it up to boredom, and though he knew that was definitely part of it, what remained of his criminal mind longed for something that would stifle the itch and let him have a little fun.

And beyond that...? He knew he wanted happiness; who didn't? He wanted friends, and he had them. He wanted to see them, laugh with them, spend _time _with them, but they were, alas, hundreds of miles beneath the stool he sat so casually on, and so all contact remained through video conversations. He wanted his dreams for the future to be fulfilled — again, who didn't? — and knew that with his brainpower that he could do it.

Really, Artemis Fowl though to himself, poking at a slice of apple, he was now a very selfless person.

"Butler," he said, a little loudly over the noise the twins were making as they argued with each other over something he couldn't quite discern as intelligent material, "My cell phone is on the charge on the bar. Could you collect it for me, please?"

"Such good manners," the bodyguard murmured for only Artemis to hear, and the boy grimaced, knowing that Butler was poking fun at his polite inquiry, which he never would have thought to use the many years ago he had kidnapped Holly Short, therefore beginning the slow but steady moral changes to his character.

"Quiet, old man," Artemis grimaced as Butler pressed his iPhone into his hand. "I could have you fired for your impertinence."

Butler snorted. "As if."

Artemis smiled and entered his pass code, 0109, before pressing his index finger to the scanner he had programmed into the phone. There were quite a lot of differences between this phone and the ordinary iPhone, most of those differences being inspired by fairy technology, therefore making the device actually useful.

"Very nice," Angeline commented as she caught sight of Artemis speaking clearly into the speaker. "Much more advanced than what originally came out of the Mac box, I'd assume?"

"Please. I invented a device twice more technologically advanced than the iPhone when I was eight." The phone, recognizing his voice pattern, unlocked itself after its various security procedures. "I only keep this for appearances."

"Of?"

"Normality, of course. The public thinks I'm odd enough."

Angeline chuckled and leaned down to answer the question Beckett was asking while tugging at the end of her nightgown. Butler, who had overheard the conversation, raised an eyebrow. "Why not just use the C Cube? I know how much you hate that piece of junk."

"This 'piece of junk' is what most people would call revolutionary technology. If I used the C Cube for everything, people, meaning the press, would eventually notice that I had something the world has never seen before. We wouldn't want the tech-head hotshots in California and Japan to get all ruffled because I had technological secrets I wasn't releasing, now would we?" He scowled, flicking through the application pages. "Besides, you can't walk everywhere holding a box in front of your face. Cell phones are a bit more convenient in that you can talk to someone and watch where you're going at the same time."

"Touche."

"I try, old friend, I try."

Artemis was currently scrolling through an opera list, looking for some sort of sophisticated form of entertainment. "Oh my. Butler, would you be partial to hopping over to London tonight? L'Osteria di Marechiaro is playing for one night only at Her Majesty's Theatre."

"Hardly an opera house," Butler commented. "What show is that?"

"My dear friend," Artemis said, feigning shock. "It is a tribute to the work Giovanni Paisiello! A masterpiece! Very obscure, of course, not well known, and therefore not preformed nearly enough!" He fixed Butler with his most vampire-like smile. "It would be very much a pleasure to attend, don't you think?"

"And here I was convinced you were actually going to go outside and enjoy the weather," Butler sighed in mock defeat.

"Heavens, no! What on Earth made you infer that?" Artemis glowered at the window. "Simply because I admired the ultraviolet rays beyond these walls does not mean I wish to put my complexion in harm's way."

Butler smirked, very much amused. "Since when do you care about your complexion?"

"I'm seventeen," Artemis replied, miffed. "You know I have teenage hormones running amok through my body. Unfortunately, my strong will does not put a stop to that bothersome acne."

"Or liking girls," Butler said bluntly, taking Artemis's empty bowl as the young genius scowled. "Don't worry. Your face looks fine. Puberty isn't that big of a deal."

"Tell that to my great-aunt Eros," Artemis snapped. "Fitting to her name, she fell in love with a few too many men and ended up a shameful prostitute in Paris."

"Now, being a Parisian prostitute is not always a bad thing," Butler chided him. "Some are quite respectable, if not a little provocative when you're asking them to tail someone for you, but you can't have everything."

"Oh really? Because having a forced abortion done by a rusty knife in a sewage-laden alleyway does not seem to me to be 'respectful.'"

"Artemis," Butler warned, and the boy looked down to see a curious pair of blue eyes looking up at him.

"What's provocative mean?" Myles asked innocently up at his older brother, and Artemis sighed sharply out of his nose.

"To cause anger," he answered somewhat truthfully, and, satisfied, the young child flounced off to wrestle with his twin in the thick rug covering the living room floor. Artemis rolled his eyes and turned back to his mother and bodyguard, reveling in the semi-silence left by the lack of the twins' immediate presence.

"Did I hear something about an opera in London while I was dealing with the boys?" Angeline asked, returning her attention to her eldest.

"Yes," Artemis replied, turning his phone off and slipping it into his pocket. "I already booked two tickets, unless you would like to attend?" He smirked.

"Of course not," Angeline laughed. "You know I don't have quite the patience you have to deal with opera."

"A feeling I cannot fathom," Artemis replied. "The opera is simply splendid, Mother, and I don't see how you can show such hatred."

"Not hatred, dear," Angeline said reprovingly. "Hate is a very strong word."

"Please, Mother, I am not a child. Do not speak to me as if I were."

"You know," said a very sleepy voice from the doorway. "Young ones should respect their elders." Juliet Butler, who was currently leaned against the aged oak of the doorframe, yawned hugely and tousled her already messy long blonde hair. "And I don't see why you have to use such big words this early in the morning."

"It's 8:30!" Artemis replied indignantly.

"My point exactly," Juliet said, nodding to her elder brother as he handed her a cup of black coffee. "I had my fair share of early mornings with Madam Ko, and on-the-road wrestling teams don't let you sleep to long in the mornings either. I'm on vacation, and if it were up to me I'd be sleeping until noon." She rolled her puffy eyes and downed half of her coffee in one swig. "Unfortunately, stampeding children jumping on your back do tend to give you a bit of a start."

"Oh, dear, Juliet," Angeline sighed. "I'm _so _sorry, I will make sure to talk to them about it."

"It's fine. Let them be kids." She handed Butler her cup for a refill and made a point to look directly at Artemis as she said, "Someone's got to have a proper childhood around here."

Artemis shrugged nonchalantly. "So I grew up quickly and mainly in the company of books. Does this make me abnormal?"

"My dear Artemis," Juliet replied, leaning against the kitchen island. "Everything about you is abnormal. Now," she continued as Artemis opened his mouth to shoot back a reply. "What's this I hear of an opera? I know you're a fan."

"L'Osteria di Marechiaro is in London," Artemis said stiffly. "Butler and I are attending."

Juliet raised an eyebrow. "Not Giovanni Paisiello's L'Osteria di Marechiaro?"

"But of course," Artemis replied, surprised. "I wasn't aware you knew a single thing about opera, other than the women tend to hold out ridiculously high and long notes." He threw a playful glare at Butler. "_Some _people should take hints."

"I have other things to worry about than a bunch of oddly costumed moaners with a bunch of people watching," Butler said.

Juliet cut her brother off. "What, you think because I wrestle that all I'm into is Justin Timberlake and Puerto Rican rappers? Of course not! Opera's the best thing to work out to! Great stuff, fantastic if sung correctly. The music is incredibly, of course, I don't know how people sing it, but they do, and they do it well. Opera's one of my favorite genres."

"That's wonderful to hear," Artemis replied, pulling out his phone again and obliging to the security features. "Would you like a ticket? Butler and I were planning on going."

The bodyguard turned to the sink to wash dishes, muttering something that sounded oddly like "suicide."

"Please," Juliet said, picking at a stray thread in her pajama top's sleeve. "If it isn't too much trouble, of course."

"How wonderfully cordial of you," Artemis replied, his fingers flashing across the screen. "But seeing as it is _not _too much trouble to bribe the English businessman who bought the one remaining seat in the box, I think you should make yourself presentable." His mismatched eyes flicked up the analog time recorded at the top of the screen. "And pack for an overnight. We'll leave in a few hours."

"Such authority at such a young age," Angeline murmured, her eyes glittering as she gazed at her son over the rim of her tea cup.

"Certain times call for certain measures," Artemis replied, smiling slightly at his mother, though his brow immediately furrowed as he looked toward the younger Butler of the pair. "Oh, and Juliet? Who is Justin Timberlake?"

She chuckled. "Pop star. Total womanizer, though I think he's trying to push the back wall of the closet much farther back than it wants to go, if you get my drift. You would hate him."

"Excellent to know that the young minds of the next generation are listening to the musings of a secretly homosexual imbecile," Artemis said, slipping his phone into the pocket of his slacks. "It's been lovely chatting with you this morning, ladies and gentleman, but I have a bit of work to do before we depart for England's finest, and so I bid you a good morning." He turned on his heel and strode from the kitchen, choosing to take the service staircase to the third floor and retreating to his study.

The place was his haven and his heaven at the same time; surrounded by endless knowledge, secured by technology even the United Nations had never imagined. He stopped in front of the door and let the miniscule scanner mounted in the door frame web its matrix of light over his blue eye and skin patterns, and then the hazel eye that was not quite his. The scanner analyzed through the optic nerve the brainwaves, heartbeat, and reparatory rate of the subject, and decided that the human patiently waiting before it was, indeed, Artemis Fowl. The door, steel covered by a thin layer of cherrywood to conceal from the rest of the house that Artemis was, in fact, a little bit paranoid, slid open, and Artemis stepped into a few rows of bookcases. The smell of the room was that of old papers and new, and the walls were lined floor to twenty-foot ceilings with books, with the exception of the large windows behind the enormous oak desk and the televisions, unused for the moment, mounted on the wall.

Artemis took one look at his desk and decided that some cleaning was in order; there were crumpled and flat papers strewn everywhere, some drawn on, others printed and written. Pens and pencils were scattered about, and some had taken the liberty to roll onto the floor, where at least three pairs of loafers had been discarded for the sake of comfort in the hours Artemis spent in front of the numerous computer screens. As he pulled back his chair he noticed that quite a few books had been stacked precariously on the seat and in a few varying piles on the desk, some fresh, some bookmarked and dog-eared. He sighed, picked up a few, and moved to return them to their rightful places on the shelves housing thousands upon thousands of books in his study.

So began the process of cleaning out his workspace. After he had replaced the books Artemis returned the shoes to his closet and tackled the overwhelming number of papers cluttering his desk and the floor surrounding. He dragged over an empty cardboard box, labeled as a book delivery, and began to rifle through his rubbish and important documents. He placed the useless papers covered with pointless information and doodles into the box for recycling and the files of importance into various stacks on the surface of his desk. After about an hour, the top layer had been taken care of, leaving at least a clear six inches of solid paper to be taken care of. Artemis sighed, the frustrated breath clearing a bit of the overgrown black hair from his eyes, and flipped through a pile near the corner of his desk. It all appeared to be trash, so he pushed it over the edge and let it fall into the box. The sound, however, unlike the normal fluttering of paper he had been dealing with for the past hour, was accompanied by the dull clunk of something more substantial than paper falling and hitting the bottom. Artemis dug through the pile building up in the box until he found the source of disturbance; the fairy communicator, given to him so many years ago.

He held the small device in his hand, unconsciously leaning to place his elbows on his knees as he stared at the blank black screen. How long had it been since he had had a call from Holly? He was kidding himself if he said anything less than four months. Of course, he wasn't out of contact with the People; he still conversed regularly with Foaly and Mulch, and on occasion Trouble Kelp, but whenever he had tried to communicate with Holly he got her voicemail telling him in her rough soprano voice to leave his number and try again later. Whenever he tried to get to her through another fairy it was always the excuse of her busy schedule, or work trouble, or family problems. Artemis knew that after a while he had stopped trying, and that each day he and Holly drifted a little farther apart.

His jaw clenched and he closed his hand over the communicator, which remained silent and stoic. Why wasn't she calling him? Why didn't she need help with a case, or a technical problem, or just say hello? Why did he care so much? So maybe she was busy, maybe she really was stressed and over-worked, and maybe calling him slipped her mind. Maybe she had lost the number to the communicator he held now in his palm. Maybe...

Maybe she just didn't care anymore.

His fingers contracted, and he squeezed the device as his stomach clenched. With a rough cry of frustration he stood and threw the communicator across the room with as much force as he could muster; it hit the corner of a bookcase with a sharp cracking sound and dropped to the floor, leaving the room silent except for Artemis's heavy breathing. Anger pulsed through him, clouding his vision and constricting his chest, and though the sensible part of his brain urged him to calm himself and scolded him for harvesting the childish emotions that swirled through his body, the rest of him longed to hit something hard enough to smash it into pieces.

Why was it that every single time he tried to make something right it came crashing down around him?

Artemis stood there for a moment, breathing deeply, and then sat back down in his chair, staring blankly at the mass of paper on his desk, listening the the silence in his study. What was the use of anger? Anger wouldn't bring him Holly. Holly, his friend, his ally... well... apparently not.

He stood, a bitter expression on his face, and crossed the room to pick up the communicator. In his fit of juvenile pique he had cracked the top layer of the screen, but otherwise it appeared undamaged. He dropped it back onto his desk and left his study, walking up a flight of stairs to his bedroom.

He slowly closed the door and then leaned against it, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor, his elbows resting on his knees, slowly thumping his head on the back of the door. If there was one thing in the world he would never understand, it was the workings of the female mind. Even Juliet, even his own _mother_, a highly respectable middle-aged woman, could be dance precariously on the edge of the emotional razor blade, triggered to emotional changes of insane measures at the flip of a switch. During these times, Artemis usually ran as fast as he could and took cover in his study, coded only to let Butler and himself inside, and let the storm blow over.

But it was different with Holly. Holly wasn't a family relation, or anything close to it. Deep down, inside himself, in the place where he stored his closet's skeletons and all of the truths he didn't want to realize, lay the blatant truth; Holly was more than a friend to him. And what killed him was knowing that she didn't care.

Artemis Fowl was a genius, like it or not.


	3. Chapter 2

**CONTENT: Mild sensuality and mild violent themes**

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Chapter Two: Good Evening London

"I love London," Juliet sighed the moment they stepped off of the Lear jet to the chilling wind whipping through the tarmac of the Heathrow International Airport. She threw her arms out to her sides, grinning broadly at the bitterness in the air. "Why did we fly again?"

Artemis sighed, rolling his stiff neck and hunching his shoulders against the cold. "It would have been an 8 hour drive at the very least, and that would have been if we had taken a ferry straight across the bay, leaving the Bentley at home. It would have been a pure waste of time."

"Have I _ever _told you how much I love London?" Juliet sang out, jumping down the stairs three at a time until she had reached the wet gray asphalt of the tarmac. "I think it's just about the best city in the world, beside Cancun, but a total opposite, of course." She twirled around, her scarf and coat flaring out from her body. When she turned to face her older brother and Artemis her cheeks were pink and her eyes wide and sparkling in excitement, causing the snappy reply in Artemis's throat to die before it had been spoken. Despite her age, training, and fascination with wrestling, Juliet could be surprisingly gentle and innocent when the moment came. Seeing her complete happiness gave Artemis a small taste of what childhood was really supposed to be, what it should have been for him, and even though his voice was exasperated as he called her back up to get the numerous bags she had packed for the overnight, his face gave one of its rare true smiles, and halfway up the stairs Juliet stopped to stare.

Artemis's normally pale and blank features were flushed and lit up by some inner light that shone in his mismatched eyes, his teeth exposed despite the biting British wind as he looked across the world from his perch on the rail of the stairs the airport staff had shuttled to the jet. The breeze tousled his carefully maintained hair, sending strands of black crossing over the ivory pallor of his skin and the sapphire and topaz that were his eyes. His gaze flicked down from the horizon, turned flaming red from the setting sun of the late fall, to the somewhat confused face of Juliet.

"You," he called, sliding off the rail and onto the platform, "are ridiculous."

Juliet rolled her eyes and continued her trek up the stairs. "And you're absurd." She ran her hands through his hair, mussing it more. "I've never met anyone quite like you, Artemis."

"Of course you haven't," he said indignantly, nodding to Butler as he was handed his black leather bag. "I am unique." Behind his back, he wiggled his fingers, switched by his first-ever time stream, at Butler, who smiled a little sadly, knowing that if Juliet's mind hadn't been wiped by the LEP that Artemis wouldn't have to conceal his little joke.

"And full of yourself," Juliet added, stumbling down the stairs. "Oh — ! Damn it!" she yelled as she lost her grip on a few of her bags, sending them tumbling down until they reached the tarmac, where an impatient airport assistant gathered them, glaring up at the trio.

The two Butlers didn't notice something was off until Juliet's yelling at the inanimate objects ceased to a mutter, but once there was little sound but the distant roar of other planes and the moan of the wind there came a sound was heard that neither was prepared for.

Butler looked down and Juliet looked up at the boy between them on the stairs; Artemis was clutching the railing of the stairs for support as he laughed, his bag dropped unceremoniously at the stair beneath him as the other arm clutched at his stomach, gripping unsuccessfully to try and stop the pain that ripped through his torso as he howled with laughter at the sight of Juliet's disbelieving face at her luggage toppling down to the ground. After a moment of staring in complete shock at the normally stoic genius staggering on the stairs Juliet rolled her eyes with a broad grin and continued her walk to the ground, somehow retaining every ounce of dignity she had had before she had lost her bags. Butler simply raised an eyebrow and slipped past the cackling boy, snatching up his bag on the way and following his sister to the ground.

After a minute or so Artemis had fully composed himself, and, straightening his military-style black wool jacket, walked stiffly down the stairs, a ghost of a smile playing about his features.

"What was up with you?" Juliet asked once he had reclaimed his bag from Butler and brushed his overgrown hair out of his eyes. "I don't think I've ever seen you laugh like that."

"The expression on your face was quite amusing," he said simply, but after pacing a few steps in front of the bewildered siblings he paused and turned back, a slightly bitter manner twisting his features. "I needed a relief of stress." Without explaining himself, Artemis turned on his heel and strode ahead, continuing into the warmth of the airport in a most business-like fashion. The two siblings glanced at each other and followed him in.

The hours before they had departed had been strenuous for Artemis. After sitting in a state of deep thought against his door for God knows how long, thoughts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness flitting through his whirring mind, he had fallen asleep and dreamed fitfully.

_At first he had been walking silently in a place with a few very old trees and lots of rocks sticking up in rows. After a few moments he realized it was a graveyard; he walked silently around the dead, taking care not to tread on dull colored flowers left by unnamed loved ones who had fled and left the place as fast as they could, leaving nothing but their flowers, unrequited love, and a strange, thick gray mist that was a little too dense to be fog. It was through this mist that he slowly made his way, his face drawn and as pale as always, if not a little sallow in the bleak surroundings, being dragged toward an unknown destination._

"_Boo." He turned, not surprised, but bored, to the source of the sound, expecting but at the same time not to see Foaly on top of a black coffin, standing alone next to a deep hole in the ground, the grass torn and flung carelessly from the site of the delayed burial. The centaur took no care that he was standing on top of a deceased human being; instead, he cantered on the carefully polished surface and whinnied at Artemis. "What's taking you so long, Mud Boy? Get over here."_

"_I can't be sure I have a desire to," Artemis said, his voice echoing slightly, though there was nothing for the sound to really bounce off of but the fog that hung there sinisterly, engulfing him. Beyond Foaly, who was poised not ten feet away, there was nothing but swirling silver. And for an unknown reason, he continued with; "You have ruined everything I have worked for, and what have you accomplished? Nothing but retained secrecy that would not have been tried in the first place."_

"_You didn't really leave me a choice, kid," Foaly replied. "I'm sorry; truly, I am." He held up a gun for the genius to see clearly; Artemis raised an uncaring eyebrow when he saw that it was a human gun. "I did what I needed to do." He crinkled his long horsey nose and then coughed violently. Artemis watched, not feeling anything but nothing, as the centaur continued to hack until he looked up to the boy, his face ashen, and crumbled to ashes on top of the coffin that housed the nameless dead._

"_Pity," Artemis said to no one, and then turned and continued his walk through the grim resting place, the fog parting easily around him. It was an odd feeling, what he had, if it could even be called a feeling; he felt empty and a feeling that was like being cold, but without the bite of discomfort or the shivering. Emotions were muted; colors were muted; even sound was muted some, albeit echoed. He felt a little too perfect; his suit was flawlessly pressed, his hair parted 1.25 inches off the center to the right, just how he liked it, but lay a little too flat to his head, and his skin felt plasticky smooth and unblemished in any way. Things were a little too peaceful, yet he felt the faint prick of unease in his stomach, subdued by the security that lay over the place, a security that seemed erroneous and imprecise, lulling him into his calm._

_Artemis realized he hadn't gone more than twenty feet in his wanderings, but something was wrong. There were no birds singing in the ancient trees, no sun shining through the mist, no cicadas chirping in the grass. He looked to his left for no particular reason other than to receive a mild shock; an arm, clad in an elegant burgundy velvet sleeve, protruded from behind a large stone monument, and tongues of flames licked the material; someone lay behind the monument, and they were alight. Artemis moved forward, whether to warn the ignorant fool or to put out the flames themselves, he wasn't sure, but paused after a moment. The arm, long and dignified, looked strikingly familiar to him, glimpsed from behind waves of beautiful gauze and the safety of thick down comforters, remembered from tight embraces and caresses; the lovely arm of his mother, touched by fire. He began to move again, this time with a clear intent to save her from further harm, but stopped once again when he rounded the corner of the monument._

_His mother was at the bottom of the accumulation of bodies on the ground, her blank gray eyes staring lifeless into the fog around her. Draped over her was Juliet, her gaze dead as well, and his father; then Butler, his neck twisted at an alarming angle, his younger brothers fallen over the once strong chest, followed by, horrifyingly, Holly, piled at the top. All of the stares, bloodied by bullet wounds to the cranium, were gazing without any spark into the fog that was rising from the blazing fire that was cremating them all at once, and Artemis realized he was not engulfed by silvery smog, but by the smoke produced by the fuel his loved ones had provided._

"_No," he whispered, and Foaly's affiliation with the human weapon fell into place; he ran backwards around the monument, wanting to get away as fast as he could but unable to tear his eyes away from the memorial, behind which he now knew there was a horrific scene, the smoke rising from behind and taking over the graveyard. He gasped slightly when he realized he had come back to Foaly's scene of death, but the ashes were gone and he had walked _through_ the coffin. He felt at his stomach for damage, but there was none; he hadn't even felt it, which was odd, considering one might notice if he had been cut through by a heavy and very solid object. Slowly, assured that he hadn't been damaged by the strange run-in with the coffin, he returned his hands to his sides and looked curiously at the polished black wood._

_His curiosity was piqued and he wondered who was housed in the box; no sooner had the thought appeared than the lid to the coffin vanished, revealing a stunningly waxy, pale face, the sunken eyes closed, the pale, cold lips slightly parted as if to accept a kiss, the dark hair carefully combed back from the eyes as if to make sure the corpse could see clearly if he cared to peek at his new surroundings. The long hands were touching over his chest, cloaked by a formal suit, and the rest of the body lay rigid and straight._

_He was looking down at the body of Artemis Fowl the Second._

"Ouch!"

"Oh..." The voice, clearly belonging to Butler, was as emotionless as ever, though Artemis was sure he could hear relief in it. "I'm sorry, Artemis. I knocked, but no one answered and I didn't hear the water running, so I worried something had happened to you." The genius, groused by his disturbing dream and unorthodox wake up, had peered up to the head poking through the gap between the door and the frame. "I didn't realize you had taken the habit of falling asleep against the door. A bit of a dangerous activity, I should say."

"It wouldn't be if people didn't panic because a knock wasn't replied to," Artemis had replied grouchily, clambering to his feet and groaning when his stiff body cracked and whined in protest to his movements. He knew Butler had acted in his best interest, but he was in a mood, and when Artemis Fowl was in a mood, he generally took out those feelings on other, something Butler was quite used to at this point.

"We're leaving in about an hour," Butler had remarked calmly, and retreated from the room, closing the cherrywood door carefully behind him. Artemis had stood, muttering angrily to himself, in the middle of the room, and then moved once again to his closet, where, with some trouble, he yanked his black leather travel bag and began to pack for the overnight in London.

And now he was walking cooly through the Heathrow International Airport, acting as if Butler hadn't awakened him from a nightmare, as if he were calm and content, as if he weren't disappointed and aching inside. Acting as though there was nothing in the world that could affect him, as if the two people striding cautiously behind him were enough to save him from the demons the planet had to offer, as if nothing could slip past his defenses. Acting, he thought bitterly, though his face retained it's stoic mask, as if everything in his world were completely perfect, including him.

He skipped the non-existent line for the private flight customs booth and lazily handed the guard his passport. The official spared it a glance before stamping it and shoving it back toward the genius, turning back to his coffee and newspaper. Obviously his shift was drawing to a close, Artemis thought as Butler also handed over his passport for brief, careless inspection, and resisted rolling his eyes when Juliet thanked the man.

There was a high security car waiting in the garage; there always was; Butler had his contacts, of course, but even contacts were not to be trusted, and he conducted a perfunctory bomb check before allowing Artemis and Juliet into the car. Juliet took the front seat after a brief argument of chivalry with Artemis, and he took to the back, where he immediately pulled out his laptop and recorded the date and time in his log, beginning to write with rapid precision. The sound of swift, well-designed keys being activated filled the cab of the car as Butler pulled out of the airport garage and maneuvered his way onto the British freeway. This, being a regular occurrence, should not have been awkward for any of the vehicle's occupants, but there was some sort of frequency in the air that was different than most companions of Artemis had ever felt before; a feeling of uncertainty, angst, and hormonal tension.

Juliet caught her brother's eye and signed the letters that formed "He's growing up," in quick succession before turning away to gaze out the window at the twilit highway. British cars flew past in the opposite direction while Butler was careful to keep perfect pace with the cars he was moving with so as not to draw attention to their vehicle. Wildflowers, glowing yellow and orange in the setting sun, littered the median and fields passed by on the outer sides. Before long the fields turned to houses and the houses to retail centers and joined units which in turn gave way to the busy streets of downtown London. Here Butler slowed to a crawl once they entered the business district so as not to hit the reckless pedestrians crossing against the lights and all over the streets. People littered the sidewalks, most clad in business attire, as the workday was just ending, disappearing into the Underground stations and striding sharply along the walks. The homeless and the drug addicts littered the corners, and the dangerously thin beauties of the fashion industry strutted out of high-end stores and agencies, pursued by hordes of photographers and agents. While Juliet drank in the hustle and noise of the city, Artemis took no notice, his brow furrowed as he tapped away on his keyboard, only looking up and closing his laptop once they passed the infamous Harrod's, knowing they were nearly to their destination.

The Parkes Hotel at 41 Beaufort Gardens was a prestigious five star hotel in the heart of London, and no sooner had Artemis replaced his laptop into his bag than Butler pulled the car into the valet parking drive, eyeing the porter suspiciously as he handed over the keys and helped Juliet pull her extensive luggage collection out of the trunk, muttering something about the obscene packing methods of women. Juliet whacked him with her faded plaid book-bag, which contrasted with her sleek high-fashion steel luggage, and replied with something about blood and the superiority of women at their "time of the month," at which point Artemis rolled his eyes and pulled out his modified iPhone, tapping away on the Internet.

"You done there, smart boy?" Juliet asked, and he nodded after a moment, slipping the phone back into the pocket of his slacks.

"Reservation for three Superior One Bedroom Suites," Artemis murmured to Butler as they were ushered into the posh lobby, greeted by a brightly grinning clerk behind the desk. Artemis shot her a merciless scowl and her smile dimmed a bit, but to her credit she greeted the three warmly and Butler gave her their reservation.

"Huh," she said, half to herself as she gazed into the computer screen in front of her. "I could have sworn that two seconds ago those were under the name 'Ackerman...'"

"Perhaps you were on the wrong date," Juliet offered sweetly, and the clerk beamed at her.

"That must be it, ma'am. Here are your room keys; if I could have identification from one Artemis Fowl, please." She looked expectantly towards Butler, but Artemis demanded her focus as he cleared his throat intolerantly and slid his passport across the marble counter with one finger. The clerk raised an eyebrow but continued to beam at him as she took his passport and checked it with a level of security that would have shamed the customs official they had encountered before handing it back and bidding them to enjoy their stay.

They made their way up to the suites before parting ways to their separate rooms. Artemis wasted no time walking down the few stairs that led from the door to the living area and stowing his overnight bag temporarily in a closet, taking his suit, safe in its garment bag, and carrying it through the living areas and into the bedroom, where he placed the bag on the bed and stopped, looking out the window across London. Below, Knightsbridge roared with activity, full of people with places to be and loved ones to see. Artemis stared blankly at the scene for a moment before shaking himself, scolding his adolescent mind for letting itself wander, and brushed his overgrown hair out his eyes, briefly surveying the room. It was by no means the nicest hotel room he had ever been in, especially not in London, but the Parkes Hotel held a certain charm to him; it was where his mother and father had met, she a disgruntled daughter dragged to a business meeting and he a sneaky boy spying on her father. Angeline had caught him in the act of going through the wallet pick-pocketed from her father so as to steal his identity information, and only his less-than-gentlemanly apology behind a raised partition in the hotel restaurant had kept her from ratting him out, possibly because her mouth was otherwise occupied and Artemis Senior was very skilled in the area of distractions.

Artemis sighed softly and then began to undo the buttons on the maroon shirt he still wore from the morning, his brow furrowed in thought like it always was, making him appear years older than his age of seventeen, an age when he should have been running amok with his senior class friends, excited for graduation, freedom, and college. At seventeen he should be a troublemaker; an occasional detention was to be expected, as was fooling around with girls, and caring but at the same time not about his grades. Yet here he was, undressing for a shower in a posh London hotel and preparing himself for an anticipated night at the opera, contemplating the meaning of life, wondering if there was an undiscovered stage in atomic molecular structure, and mentally designing a new security system for his computers because he knew for a fact that Foaly was very close to cracking the one currently in use.

Once he had completely undressed except for his black boxers he hung his clothes in the closet and made his way back to the bedroom where he paused only to grab his Bumble and Bumble Gentle shampoo and Molton Brown recharge black pepper shower gel before turning on the water and stepping into the surge. Hot water hit his body and immediately Artemis felt muscles he didn't know he was holding taut loosen. He let out a long, slow breath and closed his eyes, letting the water wet his tousled hair and slip down over his face and to his body. Despite the countless advances of technology that humanity had made, Artemis firmly believed, though he would never tell anyone, that the heating of water for bathing was the best thing anyone had ever thought of. Hot water calmed him, and many a time had his endless, tireless work been interrupted by Butler ordering him to take a long shower. After a moment of simply standing under the spray Artemis rubbed his shampoo deep to his roots before scrubbing fiercely at his scalp under the force of the water, rinsing it just a quickly as he had applied it. The moment shampoo stopped passing from his hair he uncapped the shower gel and reached out from behind the shower curtain to snatch a washcloth folded on a shelf. He lathered the wash on the rough material of the now wet washcloth and passed the soap over his arms, his senses snapping at the smell of black pepper that rejuvenated his state of fatigue.

Artemis took a moment to look at his current physique. His arms were curved outward with muscle instead of inward with a lack thereof, and though he was still rail-thin, his body held a certain steadiness he had never really had before he had started working out for an hour a day in the gym. His legs, though skinny, were muscled enough to give Artemis a small twinge of satisfaction when he flexed them, and the general improvement of health gave Artemis an overall feeling of being a much healthier person. By Butler's prodding he had been spending more time out of the confines of a building, and while he was still pale, his skin had a healthy look that could only be supplied by the glow of the sun and the laughter triggered by his siblings dragging him into a very unbalanced game of soccer or cricket.

Reluctantly, Artemis shut the water off, feeling that he had wasted enough time, and grabbed a hotel-provided towel from the rack. He stood there for a minute, dripping wet and wrapped snugly in the towel, and then brought the material up to his sopping hair and rubbed vigorously until small droplets of water were flying everywhere and his hair was more or less dried to a state of dampness. He stepped out of the security of the shower curtain, cringing as the chilled air hit his bare skin, and went back out into the bedroom.

Under normal circumstances, Artemis Fowl would never have been caught dead in a T-shirt and pajama pants, but in the strict privacy of a bedroom he would throw a pair on and do what he pleased. Artemis pulled on a light blue T-shirt and gray sweatpants, marveling at his reflection in the floor length mirror mounted on the wall; with his loose just-rolled-out-of-bed outfit and overgrown, wild and uncombed hair, not to mention a couple of stray water drops on his face and arms, he looked positively like a slacker.

He chuckled slightly and pulled his Aveda Cleanser out of his bag, retreating back to the bathroom to wash his face. Once he had wetted his face, applied the product, and rinsed it off, Artemis found himself looking up at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, staring at his one tawny eye that looked steadily back at him, slightly red-rimmed from the heat of his shower. Holly's eye, the vision a little sharper than his own, and a little yellowed. Despite all they had gone through — switching eyes, traveling through time, kidnapping, saving his father and the fairy race, holding hands nearly naked, the kiss, the lies, the discoveries — despite all of it, something had separated them and he didn't know what it was. It frustrated him to no end, not knowing; was it something he had done? Was she angry, or sad, or scared? Artemis Fowl was not a man to lack in answers, but he found himself clawing at the air to try and find an answer to this problem that was nowhere to be found.

Artemis sighed, patted his face dry, and walked out of the bathroom again, pulling his laptop, sitting lightly on the edge of the Queen bed with the computer on his lap. He pulled up his iTunes and picked the one music artist outside of the classical, opera, and jazz genres he could stand — David Bowie — and set the play to random. A smirk passed over his song when the voice of the American actor Ewan McGregor came through the speakers; the first song was from the soundtrack to the truly awful movie "Moulin Rouge," which despite its horrible plot and screenplay had some good music; occasionally he _could _stand the musical theatre genre.

"_This is a story about... love. The woman I... love is..."_

Artemis pulled his suit out and lay it flat on the bed, unzipping the garment bag and unbuttoning the sleek jacket.

"_... Dead."_

He frowned and pulled the slacks off of the hanger, discarding the casual sweats for the much more proper attire as Bowie's voice took over the background music.

"_There was a boy... A very strange enchanted boy... They say he wandered very far... Very far..."_

Artemis guided his black leather belt through the loops in the pants and left it hanging as he moved for his pressed white dress shirt. He put his arms through the stiff sleeves, and though the starched material weakly resisted, pulled it all the way on and buttoned it, tucking it carefully into his pants and then cinching and buckling the belt so that the slacks hung perfectly off his thin hips.

"_Over land and sea... A little shy... and sad of eye... But very wise was he..."_

Artemis dug through his bag again and pulled out two small objects, one a tube and the other a small bottle, followed by a comb he found very elusive. He strode once more into the bathroom and set the Bumble and Bumble Gel and Gellac onto the green marble countertop, running the comb through his hair until it was pulled back away from his face without a part.

"_And then one day... Once magic day he passed my way... While we spoke of many things..."_

He uncapped the gel and rubbed a bit in his long, narrow hands before rubbing it through his midnight hair, once again tousling it. He pulled the comb through, pulling it back to fit his desired style, and then ran the Gellac over the stiff hair, covering it with a slick shine that he dulled down using the convenient toothbrush the hotel had provided. Artemis smirked at himself in the mirror and ran his now clean hands over his hair; it refused to yield at his gentle touch, remaining perfectly styled.

"_Fools and kings... This he said to me... The greatest thing you'll ever learn..."_

Artemis swept out of the bathroom for the final time, taking a black necktie from his bag and tying it expertly around his neck before taking the stiff suit jacket and swinging it around his shoulders to pull his arms through, leaving it unbuttoned.

"_Is just to love..."_

He pulled on his dress socks and shoes, his long, pale fingers lingering on the laces before he stood and slowly turned to face the mirror, contemplating the image of perfection he had plastered onto himself. When Artemis saw his reflection he knew he was ready to step out with an air of composure and uncaring disposition.

"_And be loved in return!"_


	4. Chapter 3

**CONTENT: none**

**

* * *

**Chapter 3: The Point of No Return

The Butlers found Artemis, as they knew they would, at Harrod's, sitting calmly at a table at the Terrace Bar that overlooked Hans Road, fingering the handle of his cup of Earl Grey tea while reading a thick medical volume titled _Pathophysiology_. He nodded slightly as they sat down, speaking in low voices, and after a few minutes marked his place with a leather strap and closed the text, placing it on the table.

"Well then, lady and gentleman," Artemis said, smiling slightly at the siblings, "now that we are all ready, where are we to go to dinner before the show?"

"Zafferano is only a walk away," Juliet suggested, and Artemis nodded, standing. "Or we could take the car, if Dom wants to go all safety-hazard on us." She grinned as her brother shot her a look.

"Italian sounds nice," he agreed, picking up the book. "Butler, if you are comfortable with it, I would like to walk; the mist has let up and twilight is such a nice time of day. Afterward we can walk back to the hotel and get the car."

Butler hesitated, and then nodded, obviously uncomfortable with Artemis being out in open air, an easy target for assassins. Artemis smiled and walked off with his _Pathophysiology _book, leaving Butler and Juliet alone at the table.

"Trust him," Juliet said softly after a minute. "He's growing up into a man, Dom. He's not a child anymore. You have to learn to let go."

Butler sighed softly. "The thing you have to understand, Juliet, is that I feel so much more like a father to him than I should. He's like a son to me. And it's so hard to watch him attain the right to be his own protection if he wants to. One of these days he could just decide he doesn't want me around."

Juliet threw an arm around her brother. "He'll _always _want you around. You're his Butler."

They sat in comfortable silence until Artemis returned from replacing his book from where he had gotten it. He gestured towards the door and the Butlers stood simultaneously, heading for the door back into Harrod's and down to the ground level. Normally, Artemis Fowl wasn't one for walking, but he enjoyed the business of the area combined with the cold, slightly damp smell that made up London.

Dinner was made up of good food and lively conversation; conversation in which Artemis was unusually involved with, laughing and talking easily. It unnerved Butler slightly, but he chose to enjoy the moment while it lasted; it had been a surprisingly good day, and he knew it would be a long time before he would see Artemis in such a good mood again. Over the rim of his water glass he eyed Artemis and Juliet, who where showing an unusual display of bad table manners; they both had their heads on the table, laughing hysterically, Artemis's amusement silent and shaking, Juliet's intermixed with an odd hissing sound, which led to more laughter. Eventually, they calmed down, appearing very red in the face and grinning rather broadly. Juliet hiccuped into her napkin and Artemis tried to take a dignified sip of water, but smirked too much to pull it off.

"You two are insane," Butler muttered as he signed the check the waitress delivered.

"I've known that for years," Artemis replied smoothly, straightening his tie and running his slender hands over his hair to make sure it wasn't mussed; the gel had held faithful through his fits of giggles with Juliet.

The walk back to the hotel to collect the car was a pleasurable one; the conversation ran smoothly and lightly; by the time they made it back to the hotel it had grown dark and the only light came from neon signs, headlights, and the street lamps, throwing shadows everywhere. Butler got the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched, but no matter where he looked he could see no one; not a single threat to Artemis. Nevertheless he was glad to get Artemis to the car and safely on the way to Her Majesty's Theatre. It took less than ten minutes to see the lit, majestic facade of the theatre, warm and welcome in its appearance, the white stone columns oddly yet tastefully paired with numerous windows and doors. Butler parked the car and the three set for their seats in the theatre, Juliet excitedly bouncing along beside Artemis, chattering loudly to his soft tenor, discussing the history of Paisiello and his works.

The opera was well-preformed, and Artemis was content to sit for the hours it ran, listening to the voices and orchestra and occasionally looking at the staging and production, smiling slightly when he recognized little known stage tricks and covered blocking mistakes. But mostly he used the exquisite, unaccredited music as a soundtrack to his thoughts, indulging in his little-acknowledged habit of letting the music guide his train of thought.

At first it led him to his first trip to Italy with his parents; his father had been on a business outing in Milan, and his mother had decided to accompany him. Artemis, three years old at the time, had refused to be left at home while his parents were abroad in a culture-rich country, and was brought along with Butler. Artemis had taken to exploring Milan with his bodyguard, ignoring the fashion district his mother so loved and focusing on the history and architecture. Once he felt he had had enough of the minor Italian city he had demanded that Butler take him to Venice, and had spent two well-remembered weeks absorbing information. Unknowingly, Artemis smirked into his hand, his eyes staring blankly at the stage that served as a canvas for his memories. He had so many wonderful memories in foreign countries, and some not so wonderful. Another time in Italy his father had nearly been assassinated by a resentful Italian gang member and had to give up a week of his life to recuperate from a bullet wound to the chest in the hospital, so angry that he had forgotten to be grateful that the bullet had ricocheted off of a rib, only bruising his lung and not fatally wounding him.

That led him to think of another time in London, a time that really didn't seem that long ago but was really several years; a time where had greedily tried to make a deal and nearly paid Butler's life for it. It was only because of Holly that his bodyguard had been spared, and even then Butler had lost about 15 years of his life. Hadn't that been proof that Holly cared; if she had used all of her magic just bring Butler back from the dead, just to make sure he was alive and Artemis was safe? Hadn't she proved so many times over the years that she cared? She had helped him save his father, his mother, and his dignity. She had punched him in the face twice in his life, healed him when he was nearly dead, and kidnapped him to the lower elements. She had landed them as close to their time as possible, flown up to the surface consumed in grief to save him when he couldn't remember the dangers he faced, and fought with him to make life better.

But most of all she had kissed him.

Yes, she was a teenage fairy at the time; yes, she was under the impression that he was trustworthy and honest; yes, she was relieved that he was even breathing, but why would she have kissed him if she hadn't cared for him? Even if she didn't think about him like he thought about her, she loved him as a friend and he knew it.

Or he thought he had.

When all you get for four months was ringing and ringing that never ends and the only voice you heard was prerecorded, you begin to think that you did something wrong. He had hurt her some way she hadn't told him about, he was sure of it, and she was angry; after all, every time he had tried to contact her through other fairies there was always a pause, and then the tell-tale excuse of "she's busy."

Obviously, Holly wasn't going to try and resolve whatever issue she had with him. She was going to stay angry and ignore him, and though he would give anything to find the moment he messed up for good, he knew that in the end Holly was more stubborn than he was, and if he had tried and tried, she wouldn't give in. Holly was done with him, and it was best to try and forget her before he went completely insane.

"Artemis," Butler said, and he sat up straight, blinking in the house lights he hadn't noticed turned on. "Artemis, the show's over."

"Yes," Artemis said, his joints groaning slightly in protest as he stood, pushing himself up with the armrests. "I apologize; I was lost in the music."

"The music? Or your thoughts?" Butler smiled slightly at his charge and clapped him lightly on the shoulder, nearly sending him flying over the side of the audience balcony. "Ah, sorry. Should be more careful, eh?"

"'Eh' and 'ah' are not words," Artemis said sniffily, and Butler rolled his eyes behind the young man's back. Juliet stifled a grin and took Artemis's arm as they followed the crowd out of the theatre.

"It really was an excellent show," Artemis was saying once they reached the lobby at the end of the staircase. "Wonderful vocal training of course, and fabulous music, and though the staging was mediocre I was content just to listen; what about you?"

"I thought the staging was pretty good," Juliet said, a little miffed at the difference in tastes. "A little melodramatic, but opera always is, you know? I felt like the man who sang Parisi was a little off, kind of a weak singer. L'Osteria di Marechiaro translates to The Tavern of Marechiaro, doesn't it? I think, though of course the title is ridiculous, that Paisiello did a magnificent job of creating a lighthearted, interesting piece out of it, don't you think, Artemis? Artemis?"

The wind had picked up during the show, small shreds of newspaper and plastic bags blew down the street and Artemis could smell a storm brewing above them, the dominating smell of lightning in the air and rain nearby. His hair, fighting the wind with the gel, only moved a fraction, while all around him men and women fought to see through their whipping locks, holding down skirts and trying not to lose souvenir programs and posters, but Artemis stood in the middle of the sidewalk bordering Haymarket, getting jostled by pedestrians eager to beat the storm to their homes and hotels. Butler reached back to protect him from the rough crowd that was quickly dissipating into the midnight, but Artemis remained still, his suit jacket and tie flipping in the wind, his eyes staring unfocused into the one-way street, his mouth slightly open. Butler tugged on his arm.

"Artemis!" he said over the wind, and shook his charge's shoulder. "Hey! Wake up!"

"Impossible," Artemis breathed, but he never tore his gaze from the middle of the road. Butler and Juliet followed his gaze but found only glaring headlights and neon signs, too much blazing light and distraction to see past.

"What's impossible?" Butler asked, crouching down so that his face was at the level of Artemis's. "Snap out of it! What do you see?"

"She's going to get herself killed," Artemis whispered, and then the spell that held him immobile broke and his eyes widened in panic. He turned, grabbing Butler's suit jacket, the wind beginning to break up his carefully constructed hair and making his eyes water as they tried to moisten themselves, and Butler was struck by how oddly insane the young man looked.

"Dom," Juliet said cautiously, and then the rain hit.

It came in a torrential downpour, not starting with a trickle or drizzle; it was as if someone had pulled a plug to the heavens, and within seconds the only three left on the sidewalk were drenched. The pounding moisture made it even harder to see what Artemis was not gesticulating wildly at, though Butler could just make out his screams over the slapping of droplets on pavement; "Get her out of there, Butler! She's going to be hit! Get her out! Get her out!"

"What?" Butler yelled over the din, and squinted through the rain at what Artemis was seeing. There was a momentary lull in traffic, and Butler saw it; a sodden feminine figure standing calmly between three roiling lanes of traffic. It took Butler no longer to decide what to do; it was as if someone had flipped a switch and he was running into oncoming traffic, ignoring the swerving cars and wildly honking horns; they had paid no attention to the small figure in the middle of the road, clad in a ruined black silk dress, her flaming red hair stringy and dripping in front of her face; he scooped her up without so much of a hello and whipped around, sprinting back through the tangle of weaving cars to the sidewalk where the hysterical boy and confused girl stood, shocked and waterlogged.

"Who — ?" Juliet questioned, and Butler looked down to confirm his suspicions of the girl in his arms was but Artemis yanked on his suit jacket and began running in the direction the car was parked; Butler had no choice but to follow him and did so, charging after him in order to get the limp figure to a dry, warm place; Juliet sprinted in her four inch heels behind him, not complaining but going along with Artemis's eccentrics, and nothing was said until they had reached the car.

"Emergency towels," Artemis ordered, panting, pointing toward the trunk. "In the back, Juliet; now!" He clutched his chest, gasping for breath, though admittedly not as much as he would have before he started working out. But his well-being was not the concern right now; he didn't care how Butler was looking at him, he really didn't. All that mattered was that the unmoving, dripping figure draped lethargically in his arms was safe, and that he could make sure, really, really be sure, that what he had almost given up on was here in his arms...

Butler unlocked the car and Artemis lunged into the backseat; Juliet threw him the towels, accompanied by a few blankets, and he spread a few out over the leather, demanding the girl be placed on them; her head was placed on his lap, her still body stretched out over the seat as Butler and Juliet slid into their respective places in the front, silently starting the car and cranking up the heat. Artemis, refusing to indulge his curious suspicion, snugly wrapped the girl, her once-beautiful black dress more torn and dirtied than he had initially seen, in enough towels to make her twice as thick as she had been; only once he was sure she was on her way to warmth and her breathing was easy did he push back her damp shoulder-length red hair from her face; her eyes were closed, but flicked behind her eyelids as if she were dreaming vividly; her face was paler than he ever remembered seeing it, paler than it had been so many years ago, unconscious from injury and surrounded by Russian snow; but most of all, he realized with dawning happiness despite the grimness of the situation as his gaze traced from her eyes to her cheekbones and up, her ears were pointed. She was not human.

Holly Short lay completely unconscious in Artemis Fowl's lap.

His breathing was short; he couldn't believe it; Holly, his Holly, his best friend in the world, who he hadn't seen or heard from in four long months, was laying as if dead in his car. She was out of magic, obviously, or she wouldn't be laying here shivering without blue sparks webbing over her body. Artemis watched her face, worry making him quake, his shaking, cold fingers stroking her hair, his thoughts racing at the speed of sound but not nearly fast enough.

* * *

When Holly came to she was more comfortable than she had been in months; she lay reclined on something very yielding and soft; she was wrapped up, warm and dry, and there were slow, garbled sounds around her; the soft hum of voices, some sort of soothing string music, and a steady mechanical hum that thrummed with some sort of rhythm through her body. Wherever she was, it was much better a place than where she had been in the last four months, and since she didn't feel dead, injured, or sick she figured that laying in this state for a little while longer was no sin, and indulged her desire to snuggle into the warmth that surrounded her.

But there was that issue; where exactly was she? There seemed to be something over her eyes; not uncomfortable, as if placed there by force, but keeping her from seeing her surroundings. She could easily remove it if she wanted; her hands were free, tucked against her chest, so obviously whoever had her wasn't hostile. But why was she here? Who had taken her, and where from? The last thing she remembered was being pinned to cold, wet concrete, groggy but at the same time fighting to be alert, and then a last, impossible surge of magic before everything was blurry, foggy, and slow.

It came in a blinding surge; someone had her hostage, and she didn't know who.

Holly sat up abruptly, ripping off the eye cover with one hand and whipping the white down comforter tucked around her away from her body. She was still in her party dress — having had to blend in as well as was possible — but she had felt cleaner than she had been in months. She appeared to be in a spacious, well furnished tube with windows that looked out to blackness; a cabin carpeted in beige with a few plushy seats and cream-colored walls; an airplane, she realized after a moment, having been in one once before. There was a plasma screen TV hanging on a wall, and a bar and small kitchen area, past which she could see —

"Butler!" she gasped, standing up too fast and falling over. Her thin arms gave out and she felt strong hands pulled her up, seating her on the reclined chair she had been sleeping on, making sure she was steady before letting go. Holly waited for her equilibrium to settle before looking back up at the massive smiling face; she returned the grin weakly before brushing her now-clean hair out of her face. "How did you find me?" she whispered. "I thought _I _was coming to _you_ — not the other way around. Where am I, and when did we meet up? I can't remember…" Her speech was cut off as he placed a palm over her fast-moving mouth.

"These questions are better for Artemis," Butler said. "And I'm sure he has plenty for you as well. As in why have you been ignoring him these past for months?"

"I… he didn't try through Foaly?"

"Quite the contrary," Butler said. "He tried through Foaly way to often to be considered healthy, but you were always 'busy.'"

Holly blinked, and shakily stood up. "So you really have no idea about the past four months?"

"I assumed you were working. That's what he and Trouble said."

"Trouble too?" Holly grumbled, and when she looked up Butler noticed well-fought-back tears in her eyes. "And Mulch, I assume? Everyone?"

"Holly…" Butler was getting the sneaking suspicion that something was very wrong. "Before you blacked out completely you said something to Artemis… about you… murder… and the death penalty."

Holly looked at the floor and then back up at Butler, her jaw set. "Where's Artemis? I need to talk to him. Now."

Butler gestured towards the front of the plane. "In the cockpit, talking to Juliet. She'll leave for you." He felt something brush his hand and looked down in surprise as Holly hugged his leg.

"Thank you," she whispered, and then let go and headed to the door that separated the luxury compartment from the flight control. After a moment of calming herself down enough to focus she slipped the door open and was met by Juliet's upturned face; she eyed Holly with an odd scrutiny and sighed, turning back to the raven haired boy who currently had his eyes on the radar, tapping out something in Morse code in rapid sequence; it was only when Juliet pointed out that someone who was not Butler had entered the small space that he looked up from his transmissions. It took all Holly's will not to look away from those eyes; those eyes that spoke of the pain and the hurt that he had suffered while she had been absent; those eyes that accused hers, as her own had done many a time in return, of lying to him; those eyes, which also gleamed with happiness at seeing her face.

"So you're a fairy," Juliet grunted, and it was then that Holly remembered that Juliet's memory hadn't been restored after the incident with the C Cube. She opened and closed her mouth, staring blankly at the girl until Artemis said rather harshly; "Yes, she is. You are dismissed for now, Juliet." She obliged, stepping around Holly and leaving the co-pilot seat open for her. Holly sat down, noting the warmth Juliet's body heat had left behind, and they sat in silence for a while, Artemis's gaze directed at the black nothing outside the windshield, her eyes on him.

The silence grew tense as the thousands of words not being said crashed down on them, threatening to break through and shatter the fragile bond between them. As the minutes wore on, Artemis's knuckles began to grow white with strain on the steering mechanism and Holly drew her legs farther and father up into the seat until they were against her chest.

"Where are we and how did we get here?" Holly blurted once the silence became too loud. Artemis pursed his lips, never a good sign, and looked at her.

"Shouldn't _I _be asking the questions?"

"I swear I wasn't ignoring you, Arty," and he flinched slightly at the pet name, turned bitter from disuse. "_Listen to me!_ I couldn't contact you, it was impossible without being found and I was in England trying to get myself to Ireland so I could reach you. All I want to know is how you found me and where we're going, and then I promise you I will tell you everything."

He sighed sharply through his nose. "We're currently flying against regulations across the Atlantic ocean to Brazil. If what I've deducted from what you managed to say before you fell unconscious is correct, you are currently on the run from death that is to be instigated by the LEP in response to your mass murdering of high-profile members of the people."

"More or less, but — ."

"I'm talking here, Holly, not you," he said, his voice a little angry. "You were standing in the middle of Haymarket in London — a very dangerous, busy street, I might add — completely out of it. You didn't even notice the cars swerving around you or Butler picking you up. You fainted, and woke a little in the car long enough to tell me what I currently know, albeit a little punch-drunkenly, and from what we gathered from your little speech we decided take you back to the hotel to have Juliet quickly sponge-bathe you, grab our things and run with you. And here we are. I have insured there are no tracking devices on this aircraft, but I have no doubt in my mind that Foaly is tracking us via satellite, as he always has, and so when we reach Brazil we will take precautionary measures to conceal ourselves. It's not a thing well viewed by society to be on the run with a murderer." There was a terrible, pregnant pause after that.

"I want answers, Holly," Artemis said, dangerously quiet, "and I want them now."


	5. Chapter 4

**CONTENT: Language, mild violence and sexual themes**

**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Sunny Came Home**  
**

It had started with a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" she had asked groggily, looking up from her half-full steaming mug of sim-coffee and glancing at the clock; it was 7:43 in the morning, and on her day off, too. The nerve of her neighbors... of course, if it was old Mrs. Meery than she had an excuse — completely off the deep end — but anyone else was about to get their heads ripped off.

"Open up. It's the LEP."

Holly sat up straight, the sleep gone from her eyes, staring in shock at the door. That voice belonged to someone she most likely knew, a voice she had never heard with quite so much anger or authority... "Grub?" She was ignored as another loud bang shook the door.

"Open the door, Short, or we'll force entry."

_We? _Just how many officers were out there? Holly set down her mug, no longer needing the caffeine as adrenaline was running havoc through her system, and padded cautiously to the door, and pressed the button to unlock it before opening her door slowly.

The door wasn't two feet open when it was forced wide to slam against the wall, followed by a rush of LEP officers that grabbed Holly roughly by the upper arms and pinned her to the ground. Within seconds, Holly was helpless and her body danced with lasers from the Neutrino Tazers Foaly had recently come out with.

"What in the name of Frond —?"

Something blunt hit her across the face and she looked up into the murderously angry eyes of Grub Kelp, who had his regular Neutrino and point blank range to her chest, set to it's highest, deadly setting. She fell still, slowly dragging her hands above her head before looking deep in the the eyes she never expected to see on Grub, and especially not looking at _her_, and whispered, "What's happening?"

"You know perfectly well what you did, Short," he said harshly, and two members of his team dragged her to her feet. Grub switched his Neutrino down to low again and shot her in the chest without a moment's hesitation, and Holly's vision swam to black.

When she woke up she was in a place that terrified her before anything even happened. She had only seen this place once before; on a field trip in the Police Academy, showing students how the law system _really _worked. The place for the highest security criminals the LEP had in custody. The Solitary Confinement wing of the prison. Holly's hands shook as she pushed herself up from her reclined position on the steel table that served as her bed; her nervous gaze peering around the cell; it was about ten by ten, the walls smooth white plastic with the composition of steel, the floor gray, bland concrete. There was a thick black iron door, skinny with no windows about two feet from her head. There was nothing else in the cell except a hole in the ground as big around as Holly's wrist to relieve herself in. Holly's gaze was drawn up to the four corners of the cell; in every one there was a high definition camera staring angrily down at her.

She closed her eyes, taking slow, deep breaths, trying harder than she ever had not to freak the hell out. There was a logical explanation for this. There had to be, didn't there? Foaly playing a very rude joke, for instance. Or... Mulch had framed her for something he had done? Or Artemis had had something to do with it...? Or maybe Trouble was testing her, looking for a possible promotion. That had to be it. She was a good officer and above all a good citizen. She couldn't have done anything to deserve this; solitary confinement in one of the highest security cells the LEP had to offer. All she had to do was not freak out, because it wasn't real.

But she couldn't help the plaguing feeling of loneliness and the fear that accompanied it. When would she have contact with a living, breathing being again? Who was watching her right now, the faceless fairy behind the camera?Here she was, totally alone, no one to talk to but the cameras.

"Trouble?" she called out, her voice smaller than she had meant it to be. She scowled briefly at her inability to seem unfazed. Who knew if there were even microphones, and if there were, whether or not they had heard her? Though Foaly, who was undoubtedly watching as the system was his, could read her lips from the screen in the Ops Booth. She tried again, her voice louder this time; "Trouble? Can we talk?" She raised an eyebrow, trying to smile, but the muscles in her face wouldn't work. "Normally you give your officer at least five minutes notice until you set them in a simulated situation. But if not, you know, that's cool, I just wanted you to know that I'm not really understanding what I'm supposed to do, you know, so I'll just kind of... sit here..."

She trailed off to silence and then sighed. There was no sound in the room except for her own breathing. It was cold enough to raise goosebumps on her bare arms — she was still wearing the tank top and shorts she had slept in — but there seemed to be no air vent. Weird, she thought, looking around. Obviously Foaly had updated the place since she had been in the police academy.

"Good afternoon, Miss Short," came a cold, tinny voice through an unseen speaker, and, at a loss of where to look, Holly chose to focus on the camera, which seemed to be the closest link to her captor.

"Uh... hi. Trouble?"

"Commander Kelp to you," Trouble snarled, and even through the speaker Holly could hear the venom and ferocity in his voice. What was happening? She shifted uncomfortably on the steel table, her bare toes gripping the edge.

"Why did you put me in here?" Holly asked, tapping her fingers on her bent knees. "I mean, you're my commander, so I'm not contradicting you, I just want to know what the test is for."

There was venomous silence, and Holly's brow creased as the seconds sluggishly ticked by.

"Test?" Trouble's voice finally hissed stonily. "This is not a test, Short. You are here because a despicable murderer and you _know _it, so don't even pretend that you're innocent."

Holly felt as though she had been stabbed in the gut. Her vision grew spotty around the edges and it seemed as though there was a troll casually perched on her chest as she fought for breath. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but this certainly couldn't be Trouble Kelp talking to her over speakers and telling her this, because if Holly knew one thing, it was that she could never, _never, _kill someone.

"Trouble," she whispered, her eyes clouding over as tears threatened to fall, but she viciously blinked them back. "Trouble, no, there must be a mistake. You know me! I couldn't be a murderer!"

"I thought I knew you, Short." Trouble's voice bit into her, tearing open wounds in her heart. "There's so much evidence against you that the Council isn't even going to hold a tribunal. You're getting the death penalty in two days."

_"What?"_ she cried, leaping off the steel table, her gaze locked on the unforgiving lens of the camera. "Trouble, no! I didn't kill anyone!"

"Don't waste your breath," came another voice, and Holly felt the tears she had been trying to hold back spill onto her cheeks when she heard the voice of her best friend sentencing her to death. Foaly's speech sounded choked, though it could have been the speakers. Holly closed her eyes, trying to retain her dignity at the atrocities unfolding, but was finding it very hard not to curl up and cry.

"At least tell me the charges," she said softly, her voice trembling from strain and shock.

Trouble chuckled cruelly. "A smart officer like you should know what you did and how to translate it into counts," he said with a hurt, furious intonation in his voice. "Six counts of murder, though that's all I've got the time to go through," he snapped. "The list goes on and on. You don't even deserve death, but it's the best we've got to dish out at you. You're a danger to society."

Holly was fighting for breath. Six counts of murder meant that she was being blamed for the murder of six people. Who? She couldn't make her mouth form the word; her lips were trembling beyond her control, her throat closing and her chest shaking as her body tried to cope with the strain.

"The entire Frond family, dead," Trouble snarled. "All because of you. Lili and I were dating, did you know that, Holly? Wanted some of the glory for yourself? Wanted some attention? Wanted to take Opal's place in being the big fairy that everyone's scared of? Shit, Hans had a daughter; her name was Micah. She was only eleven, and you killed her anyway. His wife Sage was pregnant. Hiro and Sloane were going to be proud grandparents in three months. Gods, you sicken me, Short. I want to know exactly why, I want to hear the words come out of your damn mouth, but we'll never get it out of you, will we? Because I know what you do; you dodge the blame and try to pin it on somebody else. That's what you always do, isn't it, you bitch?"

"Trouble, no!"

"Don't bother, Short," he said. "D'Arvit. We should have realized that you could be a killer back when Julius was killed and you ran."

"That wasn't my fault, Trouble, you know that!" Holly yelled. "And this isn't either! I didn't have any idea that the Frond family was murdered, you have to trust me!"

"Trust _you_? Nobody would do that, not after what you've done." There was a rustling sound, and Holly could visualize Trouble standing with fire in his eyes. "The whole population knows, Short. Congratulations, you got the attention you wanted, but just so you know, it backfired on you. The whole of Haven's trying to break through the prison doors and have a go at you. Really Holly, if you were as smart as I thought you were you wouldn't have left traces of DNA all over the house." Holly closed her eyes, biting her lips until they bled and small blue sparks buzzed around the wound. "You're wasting my time, here. I've got to get back to headquarters. This is the last time you'll hear a voice, Short. From now on, you're in solitary confinement until your sentence." She heard Trouble stalk from the room, and stayed silent for a moment, drawing her head to her knees and rocking slowly back and forth as her mind tried to comprehend the terrible events that was unfolding. How could she get out of this? She needed a plan, an idea, a plot, but her brain wasn't big enough, and she longed for Artemis to be there, telling her how to get out of this, that he had had a plan since the beginning, but this was just some new twist that he had known not to tell her about until the very last moment so that she could be kicked into action. But Artemis wasn't here, and Holly was alone. _Get a spine,_ she thought angrily, sitting up and staring at the camera.

"Foaly?" she said, knowing he was still listening. There was no reply. "Foaly," she said louder, realizing that what Trouble had said was true, that his voice, dripping with anger, was the last she would ever hear. "If Artemis doesn't know yet, don't tell him."

There was silence, but she hoped he had understood what she had been saying; don't tell him I'm allegedly a murderer; don't tell him that the Frond family was murdered, throwing the People into turmoil; and above all, don't tell him I'm going to die.

* * *

Holly woke up to the smell of something very pungently burning. She sniffed, looked up, and noticed that her hair was alight. She yelped and shot up, her hands smothering the fire, blue sparks zipping around them to heal the burns on her palms as she found herself alert and staring into the hallway she had not been able to see before; there was an enormous fiery hole in the wall, providing her with escape from her cell and into the prison. She hesitated; if she were caught running from the place she would be killed on the spot, but if she stayed here she had absolutely no choice than to die. But if she was being hated by the whole fairy population, wouldn't it be better to just slip away? They were her community, her life, everything. Without the People Holly was a vagrant.

_Go! _a piece of her yelled in her head, and she leapt up from the steel table, jumping over the red-hot melted part of the wall and into the long, thin hallway. About fifty feet one way were six goblins fighting among themselves, and if they hadn't been arguing about what cell she was in so that they could blow it apart and kill her she would have thanked them. As it was, one of them had spotted her, and in pointing it's hand at her to send a flaming jet of fire, hit another in the nose, bashing it in. Goblin blood gushed onto the floor, providing a distraction as Holly ran toward them a vaulted over one of their shoulders, knowing from the Police Academy experience that the other way lead straight to a dead end of the prison.

Holly sprinted down the hallway, her feet slamming over and over again into the smooth black floor, hearing the goblins behind her shouting and roaring in anger. Door after cell door blurred by; her ears were listening for the sound of prison guards coming, but heard nothing but the creatures behind her, throwing fireballs every which way in hopes that one of them would hit her. None even came close.

They must have been part of the crowd trying to get in and kill her. The Frond family had promised better treatment to goblins — like the Council would have gone for that — and the creatures had drank up even word. Up until the family's death there had been goblins all hours of the day at their doorsteps, wanting to come in a worship the ground they stood on. These, apparently, were a few of those goblins.

Holly skidded around a corner, her bare feet slipping on the smooth tile, and continued running down a hallway she knew lead to the stairs, which was dangerous, but there was no other way out. She was honestly very surprised that the goblins had made it up here; as she passed a security booth she saw a screen of the prison atrium; it was filled to capacity, people raging and storming to try and get to Holly. It was all the prison guards could do just to keep them back. So much for taking the front door.

Holly slipped into an open supply closet and the goblins ran past, thinking they were still hot on her tail. The moment they were gone Holly made to leave, but something caught her eyes; wings, sitting conveniently in the corner. A smile curled wryly over her lips; somewhere, some higher power liked her. She snatched the wings, heading to the stairs and slamming the door to the stairwell open; there were hurried footsteps far below, and shouts. As quickly and quietly as she could, Holly strapped the wings onto her back and began to run up the stairs, her heart in her throat. She had gotten by on sheer luck so far. Hopefully it would hold.

Holly crashed to the door to the roof, running full-out across it; she could distantly hear the sound of the furious crowds at the prison doors as she headed for the edge of the roof, ripping the tracker out of the wings before gunning the engine. There was a shout of "Hey you! Short!" from behind as she leapt off of the top of the room, and as she began rising she felt something painful hit her foot; blue sparks swarmed around the burn from the gun, and Holly hit full throttles, soaring across Haven as she made her mad dash for escape.

Where was she going to go? There was nowhere underground that she could hide, and that left above the ground, in the disgusting world of Mud Men. _Find Artemis, _she thought. _Get to him. He's the only trustworthy one about ground._

She came soaring down at the Haven shuttle port, crashing down on a connected string of desks; the fairies behind them ran screaming; people drew guns, pointing them straight at her. Holly leapt up, tearing off the wings and dashing across the huge hall that made up the main terminal; down a shorter hallways were the pods for the flares. There was less of a chance she would be followed in those. Contrary to her original thought of fighting her way to a pod, people leapt out of her way, giving her a clear path as she snatched four sets of keys to further confuse the LEP, who were undoubtedly following her.

_That's right. You're a mad mass murderer. A heartless killer. _

She glanced at one — Pod 446 — and ran down the rows of pods until she found it. She quickly hot-wired it, strapping herself in and commanding pods 352, 958, and 114 to detach, selecting random chutes for them to take. Holly docked her pod and it began to hurtle toward its directed chute at a breakneck speed. It was insanely stupid, what she was about to do; ride a huge, monster flare, according to her computer, leading up to Chile without anything but a cami and shorts for protection. She hoped the pod would hold off enough pressure and heat to keep her alive; there had never been a big enough idiot in history to take a pod in nothing but pajamas.

The pod sped along the docking area until it reached the correct chute; Holly was plunged into darkness, speeding down into the earth. She could feel the flare building up under her. It was a deep, growing rumbling, like that of a waking dragon. The pod began to vibrate as her falling speed grew; the heat was growing in the pod as well; the pressure was rising, pushing her eardrums into her skull no matter how many times she popped them. She hit the throttles right before she hit the top of the magma, and immediately she shot up the chute, rocketing toward the surface where she could escape and be of no bother to the People. Hopefully, though as a former Recon officer she knew better, the LEP wouldn't follow her.

All other thoughts were squeezed out of her brain as Holly rode the flare up, her face immobile from the G-force, sweating with heat she had never once felt before, sure that the pressure was going to crack her skull and the contents of her brain would go everywhere. She was getting close, but when she got there she had no idea what she would do.

* * *

Holly had chosen the port in Chile because it had long been abandoned; the Mud Men had opened an oil rig not two miles from the port, forcing the People to leave it as oil permeated into the walls, giving fairies horrible sicknesses that hadn't been seen from anything but radiation. It was in this port that Holly stumbled, completely disoriented, from the pod, her head seeming to big for her body because of the relieved pressure, her body crying in relief at the cool 100 degree temperatures. She staggered away from the smoking pod, grabbed blindly at a waste bin, and promptly threw up.

She sat there for a while, heaving into the bin, half from the pressure relief and half from the pain of the past day's experiences. Twenty-four hours ago she had been about to get ready for work. She would have gone in a checked in with Trouble, sat down at her desk, done some paperwork, chatted with Foaly when she was supposed to be writing up a report... what had changed? Why had she been framed for something so awful? Obviously, someone had decided that she was going to be at fault for it; she had never even been to the Fronds' villa! Yet Trouble said her DNA had been there. It was sick, what someone had done in order to get her killed. If they had so wanted to they should have gotten a bio bomb launched at her apartment, or just come up with a gun and shot her. But seven other people had been killed because this selfish, greedy fairy had wanted her dead. It was completely and totally unfair and made Holly burn inside. She sat there for a minute more before shoving the trash can away and making her way out into the world beyond the port.

Santiago, Chile was a sprawling, disgusting Mud Man city. Everywhere Holly turned there were people; selling things, running, walking, laying on the sidewalks and in alleyways, driving in vile vehicles through the dusty streets. There was noise, so much noise, rising to crashing levels that made Holly's head ache; the sun beat down, burning her skin, and as she bumped into a large man leading a donkey-drawn cart she realized just how small she really was compared to humans. Normally she compared herself to Artemis, who, while not short, wasn't exactly tall either, and Butler was just too mountainous to count. Even in a setting with normal people, Holly was dwarfed, and it drew stares. She ducked into an alleyway, crouching next to a decrepit old woman who was muttering about spirits in the sewers. No need to get caught by the LEP just for sticking out.

It was a week before Holly found the appropriate means to leave Chile. She used the _mesmer _on the driver of a dry goods shipment truck and he took her through Argentina and Paraguay into the South West region of Brazil, where he turned around, having dropped off his cargo. The people in the city of Campo Grande had no interest in helping her, so Holly was left to scrounge for research, deciding to travel to the port city Fortaleza. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried under the _mesmer_, which obviously was starting to weaken from her perpetual lack of hope, people would not bend to her wish of getting to Fortaleza, and Holly was left to begin a very long walk across Brazil.

The days were long and hard; the country was humid from the rain the fell nearly every day, and when the rain wasn't pouring the sun beat down with an awful ferocity, and Holly felt her magic beginning to ebb away as the blissful blue sparks compensated for the scarlet, blistered skin on her face, neck, and shoulders, replacing burned, peeling skin on the bottom of her bare feet, burned from walking on the road heated from the sun. Within a week she looked as though she had been a native in Brazil her entire life, dressed in clothes given to her by a sympathetic farmer's wife and skin brown as a nut. She ate from the rain forest the road curved through, and stole crops from farms right next to the road. It had been nearly a month and a half after she had been convicted of murder that Holly reached the port, her feet more calloused than she could have ever realized they could be, and more dirty than she had ever felt in her life. She stumbled into an alleyway to sleep her first night there, and woke early in the morning and walked around the port until she found a travel shop. She paused at the door, asking for permission before entering, much to the confusion of the owner.

She found that the next ship for Europe left in two weeks, since most ships from the port left for America, and left the shop in search of food to quell her rumbling stomach. Unable to find money, she pulled an unsuspecting rich woman dressed in sleek, expensive clothes into an alleyway and easily _mesmerized _her into giving Holly the contents of her wallet. With the large sum of money in hand Holly traveled to a fruit stand and bought an enormous mango, sitting on the ground right next to the stand to inhale it. Hunger appeased, she returned to the travel shop and bought herself an illegal ticket on the ship to Porto, Portugal.

The two weeks passed slowly. Holly spent her hours hidden in the shadows of alleyways and sleeping underneath docks, the water tickling her toes at high tide. She longed for new, for communication, but she had no means of contacting Artemis, her one ally left in the world, and Foaly was probably monitoring his calls anyway. She never spoke to any of the locals unless it were absolutely necessary, preferring to stay out of the public eye in case the People caught wind of her location and came hunting.

When Holly finally boarded the ship to Portugal she _mesmerized _the porter checking passports that she was legal, and slipped aboard and into her sparse, tiny cabin; there was a tiny porthole looking out to the water that stretched on and on, a bed built into the wall, and the world's smallest water closet. Seeing as she had no luggage to take with her, Holly was fairly comfortable in the small space, and only left her cabin to eat and occasionally catch a breath of fresh sea air that was somewhat marred by the polluted steam the ship put out.

It was nearly four days until the ship reached Portugal, by which time Holly was longing for freedom, and it was nowhere near the level solitary confinement would have been. She left the rest of the Brazilian money — quite a lot — for the lucky young man who would be cleaning the room and bolted, glancing at a map before illegally hopping on a train to Paris.

There Holly hit a very large, steep road bump; security for a ferry across to England was extremely tight, and her magic was at an extreme low; used constantly for healing her sunburns in South America and _mesmerizing _several people, there was barely enough left for healing a cut. And so Holly stayed in Paris for a month, choosing to blend into the high-fashion crowd by stealing brand-new rejected clothes out of a trash bin outside of a prestigious modeling agency. Still shocked by the ever-growing audacity of humans, Holly had been able to compile three outfits, which she hid in a cardboard box she disguised as a piece of trash in a long abandoned alleyway from the time before humans were out of the Middle Ages.

Through blackmailing and sheer luck, Holly managed to come in contact with a man in England who was willing to smuggle her to Ireland from England itself, but Holly had the problem of getting to London, where he resided in the best part of town.

"Find anyone in Paris wearing a military jacket with an Arabic symbol on the back right shoulder and ask them for contact with Honoré Matthieu Girard de Chevalier," Henry Thomas, the smuggler, said. "They will ask you the answer."

"The answer to what?" Holly asked, clutching the pay phone and glancing around the dark Parisian streets. The machine asked smoothly for another Euro, and Holly scrabbled around on the ground until she found one to insert.

"The question," Thomas said simply. "You simply say '42, mon ami,' and they will lead you to Monsieur Girard de Chevalier. When he takes you to London, contact me again, but not until then."

And so the next day Holly found herself wandering around the Louvre, eager to find one of these military officials, feeling excitement for the first time in months because she was getting so close to her goal, but though there were plenty of military men in sight, none of them had Arabic writing on the back right shoulder of their jackets. Holly wandered Paris over the next few weeks, searching for these men, and had deduced that they were imaginary as her spirits grew lower and lower. She had traveled over the whole of Paris, from the huge, imposing governmental buildings to the dark, thin streets that housed whores and drug addicts, but the men were nowhere to be found. It was not until the four-month anniversary of her "betrayal" that she found such a man in a ordering a crepe from a street stand.

"Monsieur!" she cried, nearly crying at the shock of seeing what had evaded her for weeks and weeks. The man with the symbol on the back right shoulder turned, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the short, shaking Holly tugging his sleeve. "J'avais recherché quelqu'un comme vous à travers tout le Paris!"

He raised an eyebrow at her accented French and gestured to a small table outside of a bakery, leaving his hot crepe in the making at the stand. "Someone like me, _mademoiselle_?" he asked in English, correctly thinking she was a foreigner but entirely the wrong kind. "Whatever do you mean? Are you in trouble? Has someone hurt you?"

"No, no, you have the Arabic symbol on your back," Holly said, breathless with excitement. "I was told you could take me to Honoré Matthieu Girard de Chevalier."

The uniformed man raised an eyebrow. "What a pretentious name. I do not know such a man."

"Yes you do!" Holly exclaimed, almost shouting with frustration. "I was told by Henry Thomas to look for a man with an Arabic symbol on the back right shoulder of your military jacket! I have spent weeks all over this fucking city looking for a jacket like yours! Do not tell me you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, because you know damn well that you do!"

The military man stared closely at her for a minute before saying, "What is the answer?"

"42, mon ami," Holly said, still not understanding why the answer to "the question" was such, and her anger evaporated as he stood, gesturing for her to follow. Her stomach growled painfully as she stepped onto the pavement, and the man dropped two Euros onto the counter of the stand as his crepe, filled with Nutella, was handed to him fresh off the pan. He handed it to Holly, who, eyes wide, quickly began to devour it, not having eaten since the morning before.

In the fashion district Holly was shown to a magnificently gay Honoré Matthieu Girard de Chevalier, a budding designer known for his flamboyant style in clothing, who tittered over her state and attire before throwing a new, blissfully clean outfit into her arms and shoving her seriously into a hidden room with no windows. Holly changed and sat in the semi-darkness for hours before Girard de Chevalier came to fetch her, muttering rapidly in French as he wrapped her in an oversized trench coat and a faux-fur hat. He explained in hushed, heavily accented English (like she couldn't understand his French mutterings about how mad his boyfriend would be that he was skipping their night out) that he was taking her to a boat dock on the Northern Beaches of France where he could smuggle her to London on the pretext that he was meeting a fashion industry friend who could help him contract models for cheap. "Henry says you're free of charge, that you do not pay, _cherie_, so I will take you over for free, okay? Okay."

The drive was completely dark, charging deep into the nighttime, and the crazed designer's driving nearly drove Holly over the edge; he chattered nonstop in French while he weaved erratically over the road, sometimes into oncoming traffic, and screamed at drivers in profane French before going back to his non-stop talking. They reached the docks at eleven at night, and he pushed Holly onto unceremoniously onto a hot pink boat made for two people before heading over to the boat house and shouting flamboyantly that he needed someone to wake the driver to take his boat over to London because he had to be there by morning and he was scared to death of planes. A grumpy, stout man lumbered onto his boat and started the engines, unaware that Holly, listening from under the deck, could hear him swearing that if he had to do this one more time for the crazy French fag he would shoot him.

The passage to England reminded Holly horribly of the solitary confinement cell so many miles below ground, and she spent the hours over the bay with her knees drawn to her chest, thinking that she was only days away from reaching her goal; Artemis. She didn't sit up until she heard Girard de Chevalier proclaiming loudly to the driver of the boat that he simply couldn't stand the wind in his hair any longer and that he was going below deck. The Frenchman took her hands the moment he got down there, his serious aura strange for his flamboyant personality.

"When we get to Dover, _cherie, _there will be a car waiting for you at the docks. Once the driver leaves, go find that car. It will be the only one left in the lot, probably. I bid you good luck, _mademoiselle_, and if you ever stop running from the law, or whatever your problem is, come see me. I have never seen a woman such as yourself; those pointy ears, those angelic features! It is like a message from the gods! You were born to model, and though you are a little on the petite side, you have an excellent body for a woman." The boat began to slow, and he stood, air kissing her once on each cheek with a "mwah!" sound each time. "And if not, come and see me sometimes, darling, I do enjoy visits." And with those parting words, he swept from the cabin, telling the driver to "go find a beer, or whatever it is you drivers do."

In the car that was waiting for her Holly found a fancy black silk dress that fit her perfectly, oddly enough, and a note that said _Freshen yourself up for a party. You will find me there. _She stared at it for a moment before opening the mini-bar in the backseat and finding a washcloth, water, and make-up.

When she reached London, Holly, a bit lightheaded from being so close to Ireland, the magic in the air infiltrating from across St. George's Channel, entered the party in a small boutique hotel in Trafalgar Square, her hair neat, albeit a little greasy, but her face and body stunning in the make-up and beautiful black dress. She felt a little tall and tipsy in the high heels, but made her way through the halls of the hotel, asking for Henry Thomas before she was directed to a small ballroom filled with suited, cigar-smoking men.

Henry Thomas had gray eyes, oily brown hair, and a square face. He caught sight of Holly and tilted his head ever so slightly toward a service door leading into the alley outside. Holly scooted through the crowded, smoky room, muttering her apologies as she jostled men, and slipped out the door and into a wet, slightly steaming alley filled with trash bins. Minutes later she was met by Henry Thomas, who smiled coldly, towering over her.

"Well, ma'am," he said, smirking slightly. "It's so late at night I was afraid you wouldn't come."

"No, I need to get to Ireland as soon as possible," Holly said, something in her gut telling her that something was very wrong, but she ignored it; not when she was so close. "I couldn't pass up an opportunity this good."

"Yes, it is a very good opportunity," Thomas said smoothly, stepping casually between Holly and the faraway entrance to the dead-end alleyway. "But you know that usually I charge a lot for something like this, don't you? You sounded so desperate over the phone that I decided to let you across the border for free." Holly stepped back from him, somehow knowing what he was getting at. "I need to be paid somehow," he continued, gesturing to her curves, emphasized by the formal dress he had supplied as her disguise. "I have booked a room in the hotel upstairs. A very nice room, with a good king-sized bed —"

"Absolutely not," Holly said, stepping back faster now. "I don't have money to pay you, but where I'm going, the people I'm going to meet can pay you any amount of money you wish —"

"But now that I see you in person I am not sure I want money over your body," he said greedily, his voice making her skin crawl as her back hit a brick wall. He had backed her into a corner, and there was no way out. "You told me you were petite, but I did not envision you like this. You are the size of a child, but you have the body of a woman... A very, very attractive woman."

"Stop it," Holly cried as he took hold of her bare shoulders, wrenching out of his grip. "I am not your whore."

"You need to get to Ireland," Thomas said nastily, grabbing her more tightly, and his hands were so big that she couldn't struggle out of his grip. "It will be nothing to you. Just the same as paying money."

"Not the same," Holly growled, knowing that if she screamed he would kill her; there was a glint in those heartless gray eyes that told her that he was more illegal of a man than she had initially thought. "Let me go. Now."

"If you will not do it willingly I will take you myself," he growled, pushing her down to the ground despite her thrashing and muted sounds of struggle. He pressed her chest down with one hand while he unzipped his trousers, and then placed his full weight on her on the ground of the wet, dirty alleyway.

Holly couldn't breathe; she had come all this way just to be defeated by a man so much bigger than her that he was crushing the life out of her in a place that wouldn't her be taken advantage of with any dignity whatsoever. She struggled weakly as she felt him move her dress up out of the way; black spots flickered in front of her eyes as her body was deprived of the oxygen it so needed, but she was being suffocated, her will to continue with her journey and life itself shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. It wasn't fair, she had tried so, so hard, and now, to be taken on the soiled, grimy concrete alleyway of London by a slimy, lying, cheating Mud Man, so the same but so different than Artemis... Artemis! She had to get to Artemis, and she couldn't do that if she were pinned to the ground! She had to go now, and this asshole was stopping her.

"No!" Holly screamed, and as much to her surprise as it was to Henry Thomas's, raw blue energy pulsed through her fingers as her body used all that was left in her being, blasting pure, burning magic and any other energy her being had to spare straight into the offending man's body, blasting him off of her and clear into the brick wall behind her, where he lay still.

Holly stumbled to her feet, swaying, and staggered out into busy Trafalgar Square, her feet taking her places she didn't know, over sidewalks and streets and the entire world rushing around her without meaning or feeling...

And suddenly she was floating, and people were shouting, and she was drifting away, her last conscious thought being the dismal feeling of failure.


	6. Chapter 5

_I know I said that there would be no author's notes because I hate them to bits (I really, really do), but I feel that this is important._

_Dear L.V. from Brazil (unsigned reviewer),_

_I'm not sure if you'll read this or not, but I wanted to give you a huge thank you for actually criticizing my story. Seeing as it would be a little weird if the story suddenly dropped from uber-detailed to not too detailed at all, the detail love will be continued until the fic is over, but in my next fic (yes, I already have the plot down, being the stupid overachiever I am) I will be more conscious of this. Thank you SO MUCH for giving me a review that tells me a way to really improve my writing._

_Also a thank you shout-out to ilex-ferox, who also pointed out a couple of mistakes and made a comment about my over-use of adjectives, which I think has come from a no-detail phobia from years of reading fan fictions with none at all._

_Please review honestly._

_Alchemechanist_

_P.S._ _There is a lot of Spanish in his chapter. Don't go to the trouble of translating it if you're not fluent (I'm not even sure I got the grammar right), because the English between the Spanish phrases is enough to tell what is going on._

**CONTENT: Language, mild violent themes**

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Chapter 5: Crash and Burn

There was a brief moment of silence before Artemis reached across Holly and flipped a button; she tensed when he released all controls, but he gestured to the blinking status on the control panel; AUTOPILOT ENGAGED, and Holly relaxed into the cushy co-pilot seat. Artemis swiped a bottle of water she hadn't noticed off of the floor of the cockpit and took a long drink before looking thoughtfully at her.

"Quite a tale," he murmured. "Let me just say, instead of ranting about the way that you have been treated, that I'm glad you are _not _a murderer, and that you are safe, and that you have not, as I originally thought, been ignoring my presence for the past four months."

"Yeah, me too," Holly murmured. "That would kind of, you know. Suck."

Artemis chuckled softly. "Yes, it would, as you say, suck."

Holly smiled slightly. "And might I just say that it was a spectacular twist of fate to guide me to Meat Shop, or wherever you found me —"

"Haymarket."

"— and that if you hadn't I would be spending another two months stuck in that horrid city you call 'London.' And not getting to Ireland, and most likely getting caught by the LEP. And killed." Her smile faded. "It's hard to ignore the gravity of the situation, but I do my best."

"Are they trailing you now?" Artemis asked, cradling his chin in his fingers.

"Possibly. I haven't noticed if they have, but I'm generally good at noticing these things. One doesn't become the best police officer in the force by being a total dumbshit."

"So vulgar," Artemis commented dryly. "Aren't you just a sweetheart?"

"I try." And without warning and to the total surprise to both occupants of the cabin, Holly burst out laughing, clutching her stomach and doubling over in her chair, howling madly. Artemis sniggered into his hands, and before he knew it he was laughing nearly as hard as she was, knowing that he should be keeping an eye on the instruments but at the same time not caring in the slightest what happened to the plane as long as he was here with Holly, having this moment with her, uninterrupted, happy, and the way that things should be.

This thought process was sustained peacefully until the proximity radar started beeping rapidly. Holly kept laughing but Artemis's own uncharacteristic mirth was cut short; he would know that sound anywhere; the sound of the radar beeping at that frequency could only mean one thing.

Missiles.

As soon as this thought had crossed his mind two small, streamlined rockets rose out of the clouds in the distance. He stared at them for one frozen second before taking action.

Artemis snatched his communications headset and broadcast to the nearest secure landline; "This is Dahlia-Straight-Forty-Fiver transmitting in the blind guard, disengage, repeat, disengage!" He reached up and flipped the switch that he knew would flash the "Fasten Seatbelt" sign in the cabin, trusting that Butler would know what was happening and strap in for the wild ride they were about to take. The moment that task had been accomplished he rapidly double-pressed the square red emergency button; the anti-missile devices Butler had recently had installed in the plane ignited and shot out from their respective holders, circling the plane. He flipped the plane on its side to dodge the oncoming missiles from the front; he heard a muffled yelp from the cabin and bit his lower lip in concentration as Holly gabbed onto her seat armrests to keep from sliding off her seat. A good captain, Artemis was already strapped in, and though he was jostled a bit he remained in his seat.

By this time Holly had realized there was a problem and had stopped her laughing immediately, her face solemn. "What's happening?"

Artemis ignored her as he brought the aircraft back to equilibrium, glancing at the radar; from behind the two missiles were closing in, no doubt followed by more, and he once again veered the plane sharply, throwing it into a continuous spiral more suited for a fighter jet than a private plane. One missile was hit by their defenses and he evened the plane out again as he drew farther away from the last remaining on his radar. Almost immediately three more blinked up on the edges, drawing close far faster than Artemis would have preferred, but the situation was not under his control and so he flipped a few switches and dived, heading into a steep path straight to the ocean. At nearly full speed they broke through the cloud cover and came closer out closer to the water than he had thought; his readouts were blinking, confused at his erratic steering, never having flew like this before, and he groaned in frustration as his hands flew around the cockpit controls, pulling back on the steering mechanism as hard as possible, fearing that there wasn't enough power to pull out of the dive before they hit the water — but with tremendous effort the plane evened out, the belly hitting the water with a terrifying slam, throwing his head back, but he managed to keep it level. After a moment, though, it became clear that the aircraft wasn't at enough power to pull completely out of the death dive, and that they were still heading down, huge waves threatening to wash over the plane as the belly and nose repeatedly hit the water, snapping their heads back violently, the craft shaking as it absorbed the impact.

"Hit the throttles!" Holly yelled as Artemis felt strong hands securing some sort of backpack on him; a parachute.

The throttles, of course; Artemis pulled the lever up to full power and there was a shudder as the planes engines reached their strongest and pulled them up just over the deadly crest of a huge wave. On the radar Artemis saw one of the four missiles disappear, and deduced that it had been taken over by the water. Just as well, as there had been five missiles initially and one had already been taken by one of the four anti-missile devices. _Focus! _Artemis scolded himself viciously, as the plane began to steeply rise again, throwing Butler back.

"Disengage, repeat, _disengage!_"

They rose back up through the clouds and surfaced over the tops lit only by the full moon that held no calling to Holly in this moment of terror. Artemis flipped the plane over and turned it sharply to the right, yelling into his communications to God-knows-who as the missiles began to close in despite his efforts, his eyes darting from the tracking radar to the windshield and back again; "Friendlies, at five miles south-southwest of your position, angels ten, track east, disengage, over!" His frantic, frustrated shouting pilot-speak was lost even on Holly; gibberish to her shocked ears; the missiles were slowly drawing closer, and she was going to be killed despite all she had gone through. The worst thing was that she would be bringing three wonderful, innocent people down with her.

"Disengage, repeat, _disengage!_"

Artemis spiraled the plane again as the missiles threatened to strike the cabin a deadly blow, barely missing the impending explosion as he once again dove the plane beneath the cloud cover, staying far above the water this time.

"Artemis…!" Juliet yelled unnecessarily from the cabin. "We have three missiles closing in on us _right now_!"

"I'm trying!" Artemis screamed back at her, his face snarled tighter than Holly had ever seen it before as they flew full-throttle across the Atlantic Ocean; not too far in the distance Holly could see land. "Mayday, mayday, Dahlia-Straight-Forty-Fiver is buddy spiked! Abort, abort, there are children aboard, say again, there are children aboard this plane!"

Holly looked at him, wide eyed as he veered left to dodge the missiles once again; children aboard the plane? With a shock she realized that Artemis wasn't even of age (how easy it was to forget his real age of seventeen) and that she could just as easily pass as underage herself. She hadn't seen either of his little brothers in the cabin, but they could have been hiding there — but no, Artemis wouldn't endanger his brothers that way. Was he saying is as a last desperate measure? But it didn't matter because one glance at the radar told her that there was no use fighting the contact of the missiles anymore; they were far too close and drawing closer rapidly.

"Abort, abort, abort!" Artemis yelled, glaring furiously out the windows of the cockpit at the missiles now; streamlined things, close enough for Holly to see that they were of fairy design, and branded with Foaly's emblem.

"No…" she whispered.

"Abort, abort, abort!" His voice grew higher and more urgent as the missiles zoomed in towards the sides of the plane; two on the right and one on the left. Panic was all she could see on his eyes and face now; Artemis was really and truly _panicking_, something she realized through her fog of disbelief that she had never seen. Artemis was going to die with her, panicked, afraid, and bitterly disappointed that he couldn't save them all.

The missiles were a mere twenty feet from the sides of the plane, drawing close as their lives ticked frantically away before their eyes.

Artemis whipped his headset off, staring straight ahead with the widest eyes she had ever seen on him before; she could almost see the gears turning and smoking in his brain as he contemplated escape, physics, knowledge, anything that could save them all...

Ten feet.

At the last moment, as the plane's systems started to go into overdrive with a rising grinding of gears and wires, Artemis snapped his seatbelt off with a yelled "Fuck!" and snatched her hand, yanking her out of the so-pilot's seat and bursting through to the cabin of the plane to see Butler and Juliet crouched in the middle, looking solemn; that was all she could comprehend before she found her face against Artemis's neck and his arms wrapped so tightly around her that she couldn't breath; his breath was ragged on her shoulder as his head pressed down and the world exploded.

The next thing Holly was conscious of was falling.

She had her arms wrapped around something stiff and warm; her hair flapped wildly in the howling wind that rushed at her, stinging her face repeatedly. She was aware that she was going to die, and really, with the speed she had been heading towards destruction she didn't care; she could have died in all of her years in the Police Academy, in her four months of running from death itself, in her escapades with Artemis...

Artemis!

What was she doing here, anyway? What right did she have to put Artemis's life in danger? Why had she sought him out? For protection? Because she needed a friend? She had been risking his life by doing it! She should be helping him right now, not laying here like some invalid!

Fighting the incredible wind, Holly opened her eyes to a view Artemis's tense neck, behind which was the beautiful blue sky marred by the fast-falling debris from the destroyed Lear jet; after a moment, Holly realized that Artemis was falling eagle-spread to maximize the drag and make their descent slower, and sure enough the major debris was passing them, slowly but surely. She battled the wind and pulled her head up to see his face; his eyes were closed tight, his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed as he fought the pain of the momentum nearly pulling his joints from their sockets.

"What can I do?" Holly managed to yell, and was rewarded with nothing but a violent shake of the head as Artemis squinted his eyes open and examined their proximity to the ocean beneath them. Holly tightened her grip on his chest, burying her face in his flapping suit to minimize the wind on her face, threatening to peel the skin right off, and felt him tense suddenly before giving a shout of pain that was lost in the wind. When she looked back up he was leaving a trail of blood behind them; he blinked to clear it from his vision, his face screwing up as the pain of his head wound fully hit him, but after a moment he focused elsewhere, pushing the pain to a place far in the back of his mind. He looked back behind them; there was little debris above them now, and no sign of Butler or Juliet. Artemis reached behind him and moved Holly's hands lower on his back; she realized she had had her arms clamped around the backpack Butler had put on him, and as he yanked a cord and the parachute unfolded, snapping their bodies to a slower fall, she felt the overwhelming sense of relief.

"Ow," Artemis muttered, wiping blood off of his face before wrapping his arms tightly around Holly. "Are you okay?" he called.

"Fine," she yelled back after a moment, trying to get a better grip on him so that she wouldn't fall, but she couldn't find a way to hold on without feeling like she was on the verge of letting go. Artemis let go and quickly slid his arms under hers to help. "Thanks," she said into his ear.

Artemis nodded, squinting around her to the ocean not too far below. "The parachute wasn't opened a moment too soon," he said more to himself than to her. "Another ten seconds and we wouldn't have been able to stop fast enough." He was quiet, watching their progress, and then hugged Holly tightly, shaking a bit. "I've never fallen before," he whispered, and Holly could barely hear him over the wind. "Not like that. It was purely terrifying."

Holly raised an eyebrow; it wasn't every day that Artemis Fowl admitted a weakness. "Are you okay?" she asked again, but for a different reason.

Artemis took a deep breath, regaining his composure as they came within two hundred feet of the water. "I think so," he said, and pulled his head away from hers. "Brace yourself. Parachute or not, this is going to hurt."

They hit the water and immediately sank deep, so that the sun was nothing but a flicker above them, the slap of the water stinging their skin. Holly felt Artemis let go of her and then felt a violent push that sent her away from him; she kicked up to the surface and shook the water from her eyes, looking around; Juliet was treading water some fifty feet away from her, her own parachute disconnected, whipping her head around wildly until she found Holly.

"Where's Artemis?" she yelled across the water. "Dom said he was with you before the plane exploded. Is he okay?"

"He pushed me up so he could disconnect the parachute," Holly shouted back. "He'll be up in a minute. He just didn't want me tangled in the strings, I think, though I wouldn't know, I've never parachuted before —"

"Go get him!" Juliet commanded with a hint of panic, and Holly realized that between the distance she had swam and the talking she had done that quite a bit of time had passed since Artemis had dropped underwater. "Go get him!" Juliet yelled again. "He can't swim, Holly, he's drowning!"

Without a second's thought Holly dove down, kicking wildly, her eyes searching in vain through the seawater clouded by debris, her fingers searching for something, anything...

They brushed parachute material, and she knew after a split second that Artemis was shrouded inside, trapped by the thing that had saved his life. She tore at it, trying desperately to get him out, knowing that as each second ticked by her best friend was drawing closer and closer to dying...

She felt some sort of thrashing in the water and a moment later she felt hair brushing her hand; she grabbed it and pulled, mindless of the pain he might be feeling from it, and dragged a feebly jerking Artemis Fowl up toward the surface of the water; after panicked seconds of swimming upward, feeling Artemis's movements growing weaker and weaker as she came closer to sunlight...

Holly broke the surface gasping for air before reaching down and pulling the limp Artemis Fowl up to the surface; his face was pale, his eyes rolled back in his head, and Holly was shocked to find he wasn't breathing. She shook his shoulder, keeping his mouth above the water, yelling at him to wake up, and then Juliet was there, floating on a wooden panel, dragging Artemis to her and slamming her hands into his gut until he was coughing and vomiting up seawater, torrents gushing out of his mouth as he choked, trying to free his lungs and breathe at the same time.

"Butler," he gasped once he could speak, one hand clasping Holly's and the other Juliet's. "He had no parachute. Where is he?"

Juliet slid back from him, looking out into the water with a blank expression on her face. Artemis looked out in a different direction as if looking for the reassuring sight of his oldest friend, his eyes wide, making him look more like a vulnerable child than Holly had ever seen before. There was a silence; a silence filled with tension, despair, and hope; a silence that held the biggest fear possible, the biggest unacknowledged truth, the biggest wish that it wasn't possible...

Butler couldn't be dead.

The minutes passed filled with no sound but the lapping of the waves on their makeshift raft, no sight but the cruel ocean and a faint outline of land on the horizon, no smell but the burning fuel of the jet, no taste but bitterness, and no feeling but grief.

Artemis was the quickest to master his anguish; he dropped back down into the water and began to kick his legs; the panel lurched forward a bit, and Holly and Juliet realized that he was trying to propel them toward land. They followed his lead and slowly they began to move toward the coastline, faintly glittering with the movement of people and cars. They swam in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, some plotting, some fretting, some simply mourning. The beach slowly moved closer; hours passed, the sun beating down and burning them, the smell of combusted petroleum slowly fading behind them. Holly nodded off for a few minutes, her body flushing the last of the drug from her system, then jolted awake and muttered apologies before kicking again.

Artemis, despite his quick step to a new plan, stared at the same spot on the knotted wood panel as his kicking became an automatic motion, his legs sore and cramping but refusing to let up. There were millions of things his mind could wrap around — the existence of fairies, for one — but he couldn't comprehend that Butler was dead. He had been with the man since the day of his birth, never separated for more than a week if the three years he spent on Hybras were disregarded. It was impossible that Butler, big, strong, protecting Butler was dead because he, Artemis, was not. What was the last thing he had said to him? They had been watching over Holly just before Artemis had started the plane, hadn't they? Talking about his family, hadn't they? "_They will think me dead if the LEP attacks us like I believe they will,"_ he had said._ "It is no matter. They will get over me."_

How heartless. How bitter and utterly ironic that Artemis had said such a terrible thing, and now he knew, didn't he? He could never learn his lessons unless they were taught the hard way, and this was the hardest it had ever been taught. He knew, because Butler had been the closest person to him in his life, the one who had always been there for him unfailingly, when his mother was insane, when he was hurt on in danger, when he had needed advice, he knew that he would never get over him.

"We're about half a mile off," Juliet said finally in a dead, flat voice. "Where are we going to go?"

There was silence for a moment, and then Artemis spoke in a voice that was as devoid of emotion as Juliet's, hoarse from the salt water that had burned the inside of his throat. "From what I could tell from the coordinates before the crash, we are somewhere off the Western coast of Panama. I have made a change of plans; we are no longer heading to Brazil. We will be traveling North to New York City." He glanced wearily over at Juliet, whose jaw had tightened. "Do you have a problem with this plan?"

"What plan?" Juliet spat, ceasing her effort to reach shore. "All I hear is some frantic guesswork made by a self-proclaimed genius who couldn't even work his way out of a missile track."

Artemis stopped kicking as well; a vein pulsed in his temple as his eyes narrowed. "Do you believe that I wanted to crash? Of course not; I tried my very hardest to steer us out of the missiles' paths, and did just as well as Butler would have done. The reason we were on that plane to begin with was to protect Holly. That is what we will continue doing."

"My brother is dead!" Juliet yelled, turning to the younger boy next to her, and Artemis could see unshed tears sparkling in her eyes. "What do you not get about how hard that is, Artemis? Jesus, what the hell is _wrong_ with you? You just live your life not giving a shit about anyone but yourself! Dom was just a tool to you, wasn't he? You don't even care that he's dead!"

There was an awful silence after that; all movements toward shore had ceased; Artemis stared coolly at Juliet, and she at him, her lips trembling until the tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. She bit her lip and ground the heel of her palms into her eyes, propping up her elbows on the panel.

"I... I'm sorry." She sniffed loudly, angrily wiping the tears from her face. "I didn't mean that, Artemis. I'm sorry."

Artemis closed his eyes before speaking in a frighteningly calm voice. "Butler was my best friend in the world. He was more of a father than my real father had ever been." He glared out toward the thin beach ahead of them. "Don't you dare think for a moment that I will ever forget him." And with these final words he hauled his legs, rubbery from the effort of kicking repeatedly for the slow, agonizing hours, up to the surface and began to push the panel forward again. A moment later, Holly and Juliet, after glancing at each other worriedly, joined in once more and they began to crawl toward the beach.

Though they were all plagued by the shock of Butler's death, Holly feared that Artemis had been hit by far the worst; to him, losing Butler was like losing a parent, a guardian through dark and troubled times. And though he would never admit it aloud, Holly knew that Artemis's hope of successfully keeping her safe — an objective that made her face burn in shame — had been decreased a hundredfold because Butler was no longer there. His face was as emotionless as it had been all those years ago when he had kidnapped her; a lifetime ago, it had seemed. But that Artemis had changed. Now, with his head thrown into turmoil, she was afraid that this time he wouldn't come back to the new, reformed Artemis that had been cultivated over the years.

Another hour passed. Slowly the current started helping them toward shore; first a small shift of the water now and then, then a little push and swell of the water level, and then growing, peaking, crashing waves as their feet were finally able to touch sand. The fatigued trio abandoned the wooden panel 100 meters from the shore, staggering from the current and the weary, lifeless limbs that were their legs. The sun beat down with no mercy and the industrial population of the beach town didn't waste a moment trying to help them; they noticed nothing odd, despite the fact that three waterlogged and obviously foreign people were dragging themselves, fully clothed and sopping wet, onto the harsh, hot beach. There was not much sand before the industrial district of the town began, and they found themselves thankful that at least they hadn't washed up against a dock or warehouse.

They collapsed on the sand, chests heaving, bodies spent and depleted, hair matted and clothes singed and ruined. For a few minutes they simply lay there as the world went on around them, uncaring for their aching bodies and spirits; finally, Artemis hauled himself up with a groan and stated that they needed to get out of the area before Foaly's satellites picked them up. After a moment of gathering whatever motivation was left to continue on, Holly and Juliet stood as well.

They made a motley bunch on the stripped beach of the unknown Panamanian town; Artemis, his once-pristine dress shirt he had worn to the opera a lifetime ago see through and sticking to his body (the jacket and tie had been shed hours ago due to the heat), his slacks and shoes marred by fire and saltwater, his face caked with dried blood; Juliet, her long, beautiful blond hair in ratty condition, the jeans and cotton sweater she had changed into back in London sticking to her, making her body humid; Holly, her once beautiful tanned skin sickly looking, her body frail, the second-hand black dress now reduced to shreds. All three were sunburned and covered in sand.

Artemis moved first, heading up a set of crumbling concrete stairs built into the seawall. Juliet caught up to him while Holly lagged behind, her arms wrapped around her body as she stared in utter disgust at the waste the factories and warehouses were pumping straight into the beautiful ocean water. It was unbelievable how underdeveloped these people were. A group of apparently homeless, middle aged men whistled to her from an alleyway, and she defiantly stuck out her chin and raised her middle finger, a gesture she had picked up from watching a few of Foaly's human movies. Her heart gave a small, pitiful cry at that thought as she hurried to catch up to Artemis and Juliet, who were about twenty paces ahead, looking for a slightly respectable place.

They ended up entering a small bakery, starving and sweating. A small girl looked up from behind the self-built wooden counter, her dark eyes almond shaped and seemingly unsurprised by the ragged strangers entering the place. Judging from her surroundings and the clothes she was wearing, this child was accustomed to poverty.

"Hola, senorita. ¿Qué ciudad es ésta, por favor?" Artemis asked in easily spoken Spanish that Holly was unable to understand due to her lack of magic.

The girl raised a thick eyebrow, moving aside a small wisp of hair that had escaped her long black braid. "Éste es Colón, senor. ¿Usted quiere cualquier cosa comer?"

Artemis eyed the small selection of baked goods on the counter in front of him before digging a wet, folded American $10 bill from the pocket of his pants. "Quiero un pan dulce. Usted puede guardar el cambio."

The child's eyes widened; presumably, she had never seen such a sum before, and she hurried into a small back room, coming back with a large loaf of sweet bread, still hot from the oven. With shaky hands she exchanged the food for the money, looking at it like she was going to faint.

"Dios debe haber enviadole," she whispered to Artemis, her eyes shining with tears. "Con este dinero podemos alimentar a los bebés y pagar al doctor. Te bendiga." Artemis nodded to her before turning to leave, but Juliet spoke to the girl before he could head back out onto the street.

"¿Usted sabe de Lourdes Vega?" she asked, her tone commanding. The girl, who had tears rolling down her cheeks, looked up quickly, surprised.

"¿La esposa del embajador?" she replied, trying to wipe the tears off her face, and Juliet nodded. "Ella aquí está visitando a su hermano." The girl looked down at the money in her hands and a tear dropped into her hands. "Ella es bonita. Quiero crecer y tener tanto dinero como ella lo hace de modo que pueda dejar y casar a un hombre rico." She looked up at them again, smiling broadly despite her tears. "Ella está permaneciendo dos bloques del sur de aquí es una casa pavimentada en vidrio del mar. Usted no puede faltarlo." She shaped her hands into a square to make sure Artemis and Juliet understood.

Holly cleared her throat and looked to Artemis, though he looked just as confused as she was. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I am not entirely sure... Juliet." She turned to him, a grim smile on her face as she ripped a chunk of sweet bread off and stuffing it in her mouth. "Juliet," he said again. "What business could we have with an ambassador's wife?"

"What?" Holly asked sharply, peeved from lack of food and the rare inability to understand languages beside the English she had memorized from the heavy usage among humans. "An ambassador's wife? What do we need to get with a human for? A _governmental _human at that."

Juliet swallowed noisily. "She poses as an ambassador's wife to get away with her illegal activities in the underground professions. She's a smuggler of sorts, and for the right fee she can get you anything you need." She bit her lip. "It's just pure luck that she's here when we are. I met her on the road before I started my career. If she remembers me, we can hope on a discount." She glanced at the little girl behind the counter, who was watching them speak, fascinated by the English language. "She said that the house was two blocks down, Holly, and covered with sea glass. Pretty hard to miss if you ask me." She waved to the child and they strode out the door, splitting the loaf of bread into three and eating ravenously as they walked.

It took only five minutes to find the house the girl had mentioned; the front was decorated with shards of glass softened by the churning of the waves; blues, greens, browns, and clear. Occasionally an odd color like yellow or red would stick out from the white cement that otherwise made up the small dwelling.

"Don't I have to be invited in?" Holly asked Artemis in Gnommish; Juliet looked at her as if she were crazy, unable to understand the fluid tongue Holly was speaking in. Artemis, realizing that it was getting harder and harder for her to speak English despite having learned it quite well, replied in her language.

"I don't think so, since you are very nearly out of magic. How well can you speak English without it?"

"Pretty well, but it will be harder than having my gift of tongues," Holly said. "I'll have to perform the Ritual soon."

Artemis made the face she had learned to be wary of over the years; the face that told her he was holding something back, something that she would not be happy with. Something that could quite possibly end with her either yelling at him or punching him in the face, or both.

"What?"

"We'll talk later," Artemis said. "Right now we have to get into the United States, and we can't do that without a car and fake passports." He turned to Juliet, now speaking in English. "Can we trust her?"

"Absolutely." Her eyes lingered on the door, pieced together from many pieces of driftwood that had been carved to fit into each other. "I know that Dom went to her a couple times before you were born. She won't tell a soul."

"Very well," Artemis said simply, and then raised his hand to knock.


	7. Chapter 6

**Sigh. Another author's note. These seem to be becoming a regularity. I could respond to each and every review I got for the last chapter, but I simply do not have time.**

**To answer the questions that have been continuously thrown at me, yes, I was aware that Holly didn't need magic to access her gift of tongues, and yes, I did model that scene after the Incredibles, seeing as Google was coming up with weird responses for "what terminology to use if your plane in being downed by missiles." Yes, I did these things on purpose, and yes, they miraculously landed in the right spot in Panama where yes, they do speak Spanish. So basically the answer to all of your questions is yes.**

**The following is not a plot device. I have my reasons for doing what I did. Thank you for reviewing honestly.**

**Alchemechanist**

**CONTENT: mild sensuality

* * *

**

Chapter 6: The Undisputed Truth**  
**

The door was swung open before he could even rap at it with his stiff, bruised knuckles. In its place stood a sharp Panamanian woman, dressed elegantly as if she were living in the 1940s; a crisp black skirt dropping to her calves, a pressed white blouse, and white gloves covering her small hands, her lustrous black hair pulled into a bun away from her round, painted face. Her eyes critically surveyed the haggard travelers on the doorstep of her summer home, her arm tensing as if to close the door for protection.

"¿Quién son ustedes? ¿Qué ustedes quiere?" she asked sharply, looking for all the world like a normal wealthy housewife.

"Lourdes," Juliet said abruptly, stepping in front of Artemis. She continued in English. "I am Juliet Butler. We met some years ago when I was exploring Panama. Do you remember me?"

"Butler?" Lourdes asked, and spoke in accented English. "A member of the infamous Butler family?"

"Yes. We need passage to America. Can you do that for us?"

Lourdes Vega looked them over, her eyes catching Artemis's. Her face broke into an elegant smile as she realized who he was and she stepped aside, inviting them into the house. "Yes, I remember you, Juliet, and you, boy, must be the young Artemis Fowl. Quickly, before you are seen. Did you speak to anyone in the town?"

"A small girl in what seemed to be the one bakery this town has to offer," Artemis replied silkily, gratefully stepping into the shade. The small house was blissfully air conditioned. "She knows we are here to find you."

"Elena? She will not speak of you to anyone," Lourdes said confidently, inviting them to sit on the cool leather furniture even though they were filthy. Holly shuddered a bit as she sat, drawing the woman's dark eyes to her. "And who is this you bring with you?"

"A friend," Artemis said firmly, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees and massage his closed eyes. "Please refrain from asking questions, _Señora_. We are in a very dangerous situation."

"I understand," Lourdes said softly, surveying the three travelers in her living room, all grim and bearing lamenting expressions. "But if I may ask one more; you seem distressed. You have lost someone, have you not?"

Juliet nodded into her hands.

"Would that be your bodyguard, Mr. Fowl?" Artemis looked up, a bit surprised that she knew this, and nodded numbly. Lourdes smiled slightly, her eyes twinkling, and left the three alone in the living room, heading to an unknown room through one of the three doorways leading off of it.

Once Artemis was sure she was out of earshot he murmured in Holly in Gnommish so that Juliet couldn't understand; "I don't know what to do, Holly."

"What?" she asked, having been interrupted from a raging train of thought.

"Butler was my guardian, my best friend, more of a parent than either my mother or father had ever been to me." Artemis took a shaky breath. "I took him for granted and now he is gone. I am lost without him. I have never been without him in my life." His voice cracked on the last few words, and Holly felt her face soften from the hard look it had been for the past four months. "With Butler gone, I have no protector, no guardian, no one to go to for advice. He was so much to me, Holly." He bit his lips, his eyes hidden by his hands, which were trembling. "What can I do, Holly? What the hell can I do?"

"You can always trust me to come back to you," suggested a deep, familiar voice in Gnommish from the doorway, and all three heads shot up to see Butler standing not ten feet away from them, his clothes dirty and singed, his face and neck marred by treated burns and cuts, his face in a weary grimace, but alive, blissfully alive. Juliet leapt to her feet, yelling "Dom!" and was followed by Holly as she leapt forward, throwing her arms around her older brother, half-crazed with hysterical laughter as she blubbered in his arms, which were burnt and bloodied but pulsed with a heartbeat, with life, with things that were the farthest thing from dead. Butler smiled as Holly hugged his thigh and Juliet hugged his chest, both chattering and crying in happiness that he was alive and well.

"God, you idiot," Juliet said, sniffing. "Next time you're in a plane crash, remember that _you _need a freaking parachute too. Contrary to what you huge, blown up head thinks, you are not, I repeat, _not _Superman, okay?"

Holly laughed, saying in English with some difficulty; "You scared us, old man. Don't do that again, okay?" She looked up at his face to gauge his reaction to her words, but Butler wasn't even paying attention to her; he had eyes only for Artemis, who stood, stock still, in front of the couch, his eyes wide and disbelieving. Juliet and Holly let go of Butler, backing off a bit as the bodyguard and genius shared a moment.

"Artemis," Butler said after a minute, and that was all it took; Artemis ran full speed toward his bodyguard, tripping and collapsing at his feet. Butler swooped down and caught him before he reached the dark wood floor, worn soft by years of feet sliding across the surface but still firm. Catching Artemis had brought him to his knees, and Artemis rested his head on his shoulder, pounding his fists into Butler's broad, strong chest in a fit of uncharacteristic emotion.

"Don't you ever — ever! — do that to me again!" Artemis howled, furious tears rolling down his cheeks, before he slumped against Butler's shocked frame, his body's energy finally hitting rock bottom as one hand reached up to grip Butler's jacket lapel, his shoulders shaking with silent, relieved sobs. Butler lowered his head to Artemis's and kissed his hair as a father would.

"I'm here, Artemis," he murmured, rocking him slightly as if he were a child. "It's okay. It's okay."

"I thought I had lost you," Artemis whispered, barely audible. "There was no way out. I thought you had died." His knuckles turned white as he gripped tightly onto Butler's jacket, burying his face in his chest as Butler wrapped his strong arms around him, never wanting to let go in case something bad happened again and Butler was unable to deceive death as he had so many times before. He spoke between waves of sobs; "You know that I need you. Don't you ever leave me until you're bedridden with age. Butler, promise me."

"Artemis..."

"Promise!" He felt so selfish and childish demanding a promise that he knew couldn't be kept, but he was more emotionally disturbed than he had been for years and years; the last time he had felt like this was when his mother, insane with her grief and illness at his father's disappearance, had shoved him into the window. The window had shattered, nearly yielding to let Artemis fall three stories below, but Juliet had grabbed his shoulder before he tumbled out the window, and he had ended up with scars on his neck, arm, and heart.

"I promise," Butler whispered, and Artemis stayed in the embrace for a moment more before straightening up, his face swollen and red, but otherwise completely composed. He stood up and Butler did as well, ignoring Holly's look of shock at seeing him cry for the first time. "Now," he said, his voice nothing but business. His eyes found Lourdes in the doorway, her expression unreadable. "I trust that you speak nothing of your clients, _Señora_."

"If even my husband knew I would be killed," she replied calmly. "He does not come here; the poverty makes him uncomfortable. Nothing I have seen here will ever be told."

"Good," Artemis said, and turned to Butler. "What happened after the plane exploded?"

Butler leaned against the doorframe, the image of fatigue. "I free-fell toward the ocean, trying to slow myself up as much as possible, and at the last possible minute I fell into a straight reverse dive and entered the ocean feet first." He grimaced. "I was in shock for a moment, and then managed to reach the surface. Your parachutes had pulled you all farther offshore than I was, and I was too weak to go after you, so I lay on a floating piece of debris, hoping you would come my way, and eventually washed up on shore. I found out where I was and came here." He glanced up at the woman standing elegantly to the right of him. "Lourdes and I go a ways back. I knew she would help us."

Artemis looked to her. "And will you?"

"Of course," Lourdes said. "As Butler said, we have a history, and I have met Juliet as well. There will be a fee, of course, but with a large discount. One does not do well to empty the wallets of their friends."

"We haven't been careful enough," Artemis said, this time speaking to the other three occupants of the room. "We will be driving up to New York City. On the drive, Juliet — which I've calculated will take 2 days and twenty hours if we travel at an average of 100 miles per hour — I need you to construct new, very different identities for each of us. Butler will drive most of the way, and I will work on finding places to live and teaching Holly any English she does not know, as well as history and well known day-to-day facts." He looked up to Lourdes. "We will need a fast car, not too flashy, a computer that can log into the Internet from anywhere, and a way to get into the states. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

"Juliet. Do you have a way to get the materials you need to give each of us a new life?"

Juliet opened her mouth to reply with a quick "Yes," but realized the all of her materials had been on the plane. "Damn," she moaned, putting her face in her hands. "They're all gone, Artemis, I'm sorry —"

"No matter," Lourdes said abruptly. "I can supply you with what you need. Hair dye, extensions, and cutting and perming tools, clothing, facial molds, fake hair, glasses. Whatever you need I can get you."

Juliet wrinkled her nose for a moment in thought. "How about the Full Monty?" she asked, and Lourdes raised a corner of her lips in a rueful smile.

"Familiar with this illegality?" Lourdes asked before leaving the room.

"Completely," Juliet replied to her back, already looking Holly's face over for what to change.

"Holly needs surgery," Butler said suddenly, and said elf stiffened.

"Excuse me?" she asked softly. "Self mutilation, you mean?"

"He's right," Artemis said, not looking at her but his bodyguard with a grim, determined expression. "We both do."

"Absolutely not," Butler said. "You're underage, Artemis."

"I can look older," he said. "I want my ID to bear the age 21, Juliet."

"I forbid it," Butler said, his face defiant to Artemis's scowl. "I am your guardian right now — your parents' wishes were for me to make major decisions for you if they were not able to. Once you turn eighteen this coming September you can get the surgery if you want."

Artemis glowered at him. "That's nearly a year away. By then it will be too late. You know that."

"Then you can do facial molds," Butler said simply. "The only person to get surgery in this room is Holly. I can't, due to my... Kevlar related problems, and Juliet is unwilling." His sister nodded.

Artemis sighed sharply through his nose. "Fine. Holly needs the ear surgery, of course, and we'll add in a nose job, and change of the brow and the structure of the eye sockets."

"Whoa," Holly muttered. "Just go ahead, Artemis."

"Do you want to risk being caught or not?" Artemis snapped, reaching his temper's end due to his dangerous lethargy and emotional and mental strain. "This is being done for _you_, Holly. Take it or leave it."

Holly stared at him, hurt, and then nodded in apology, her gaze fixed on the floor. Artemis took a deep breath, knowing that he had been vicious with his words but too embarrassed to apologize, and continued on. "The People also have a nub of bone on your shoulder blades from evolution that has not quite run its course, so those should be removed as well."

"Breast and lip implants," Juliet added. Holly made no protest except for a tensing of her shoulders. "I'm not trying to be funny, Holly, but you really should."

"Is the lip thing really necessary?" Holly, halfway attempting to pull Artemis out of the black mood he was very quickly sinking into. "I think if my lips were any bigger I'd choke on them."

"Not surprising, seeing as Cupid was your great-grandfather," Artemis murmured, his gaze fixed at a very interesting spot on the floor.

Holly rolled her eyes, noticing how hard he was trying to ignore her. "Should I even _ask _how you know that?" Artemis simply looked away, his shoulders hunching as Holly stared at the back of his head for a moment before whipping her head the other direction as well, pulling a face.

Lourdes returned to the room, carrying a try of vegetarian enchiladas with her. The four tired occupants felt their mouths water as the smell hit them; apparently, besides being a perfect-image wife and illegal smuggler, Lourdes could cook.

"You must be hungry," she said. "Eat; I will prepare the bedrooms for you. You can continue your plans when you have rested, and you should take care of that head wound, Mr. Fowl." She lay the tray on the Japanese coffee table in the middle of the room and walked to a corner, where she moved a rug to lift a trap door that led under the ground. She disappeared down the ladder as the four grouped around the table.

"How did she know?" Holly muttered to Butler in Gnommish, gesturing toward the tray they were all eating off of. "That I don't eat meat?"

"Lourdes is very perceptive," Butler replied. "She can tell a lot of things about a person just by looking at them. She grew up like Elena, who you met at the bakery, but in a city, where she had plenty of experience people-watching and getting involved in illegal activities to help her older brothers." He glanced up. "Eat, Artemis."

Holly glanced over at him; he started once Butler spoke to him, having been staring in thought at a blank spot on the wall, the tongs of his empty fork very lightly tracing his lips. "You okay?" she muttered.

"Fine, thank you," Artemis said stiffly, popping a small piece of enchilada into his mouth and chewing slowly. His shoulders were tense, his brow furrowed as he attempted to scheme despite the millions of distractions in and out of his head. Holly, knowing that he really didn't want to be bothered at the moment, stuffed a monster piece of food in her mouth, eager to quell the hunger pangs in her stomach.

"Gods, this woman can cook," she groaned through the food in the thick, halted English of a language learner. "I haven't had food this good since before I went on the run." Butler and Juliet both gave her expressions of confusion, and so she told them what she had told Artemis, albeit a compressed version. As she was reaching the end of her explanation Lourdes emerged from the basement and announced that their sleeping spaces were ready, and Artemis, who had eaten very little, stood up and left the room without a word. Holly stared after him as he left, and Juliet hurriedly excused herself.

"You should see your face when you're worried about him," Butler said softly to her as soon as Juliet was out of earshot. Holly started, looking around at him.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked defensively, finally putting her fork down, her hunger quelled.

Butler smiled at her defiance, mimicking her action. "You have feelings for him, don't you?" he asked, and chuckled when Holly shook her head vehemently. "Don't be afraid to say so," he said. "What exactly worries you right now? Having lived with Artemis his whole life I can tell you whether it's normal or not."

Holly sighed, drawing her knees up to her chest, her feet resting on the coffee table. "He's very detached. Not eating. I high doubt that he's sleeping right now; he probably just wanted to get away from other people. How strongly he reacted to your supposed death; I'm scared that it's altered something in him. He's angry, I think, at me. He's separating himself from others when what he really needs now is to _talk _to someone." She sighed. "And most of all, he's doing something he promised he would never do again; he's hiding something from me."

Butler nodded. "I noticed all of those things as well, and for the most part there's nothing to worry about and nothing to do but leave him be. He will come back when he's ready." He drummed his fingers on the wood of the table. "Artemis is not fantastically sociable, as I'm sure you've learned over the years. He never really figured out how to talk to people without throwing his genius in their faces. Even as a child people treated him differently than other children because he could carry a real conversation just before he turned two. Because he was alienated — a complete accident, people didn't even realize they were doing it — and thought of as a prodigy, he grew up believing that he had to be perfect." The man ran a hand over his scalp, the bristles of his shaved head making a soft scraping sound on his palm. "He finds it harder than you can imagine to talk about his feelings, Holly, harder than he finds it to show them a bit. He rarely confides in me with things that bother him, or make him happy, and I'm the closest person to him.

"Ever since he met you, Artemis has become a little more and more like a real person as time passes on. Before we kidnapped you, especially after his father disappeared and his mother went insane, Artemis wouldn't even smile for anything. The reason he's not talking much right now is because yes, he's angry, but not at you; he's frustrated with himself because he feels like he made himself weak in our eyes when he cried. That was your first time to see him cry, wasn't it?" Holly nodded, and Butler smiled knowingly. "Typical Artemis. The last time he cried was when we rescued his father in the Arctic, and those were tears of happiness. He bottles up his emotions until they threaten to drive him crazy, and then lets them out in a short, spectacular show of humility. He once told me that the time I died in London — when you healed me — he very nearly went mad right then and there." He suddenly looked old beyond his years, more like the man that had emerged from that spectacular healing than the forty-eight-year-old he really was. "Artemis would never admit it, but he's lost without me."

"But he did admit it," Holly said in surprise. "He told me just before you came in here that he didn't know what to do because of your 'death.'"

"I said 'would,' didn't I?" Butler said, smiling slightly. "I don't know how you've done it, Holly, but you have gotten halfway through the shell Artemis has built around himself his whole life. He would never confess that to _anyone _— not even me." He glanced toward the trap door, somewhere beneath which Artemis was thinking, plotting, running himself dry. "He's scared, Holly."

"What can I do?"

"Wait for him to come to you," Butler said simply, and when she opened her mouth to protest he cut her off by continuing. "And as for that thing he seems to be hiding from you; I don't think he's hiding it. He just doesn't want to tell you when there are people around. He wants your reaction to be to him and him only."

"Do you know what it is?"

"No," Butler said, "but I know Artemis pretty well considering how little he talks. He really longs for contact with other people; he just doesn't know how." The giant man stood, towering over Holly, who felt very small in her ragged, dirty black dress. "I know it's the middle of the afternoon," he continued, "but we really should get rest. I don't know about you, but I myself am bone-tired, and you should sleep too." He headed down the ladder, and Holly, after a moment, followed suit, her mind whirring despite the fatigue plaguing her.

When she reached the bottom of the ladder she found herself in a dark, narrow hallway lit by old gas lamps. There were six doors leading off of the hallway; three of them were closed, presumably housing Artemis, Butler, and Juliet. Holly headed down the hall to the three open; the first she passed was a bedroom with a huge, elegant four-poster canopy bed, which she quickly skipped; the second seemed to be a storage closet, and the third was where she stopped.

The bedroom was small, but the walls, unlike those of the other rooms she had seen, was hewed out of the raw limestone that apparently the house was built on. It was quite dry; there must have been a moisture seal around the walls. Holly entered slowly; it was a double bed, the sheets a leafy green and the comforter black; there was a small wash bin on the old pine dresser and a small pile of clothes on the surface as well. Holly crossed the dark wood floor to the clothing and found as she unfolded a pair of pajama pants that they would fit her perfectly. Holly felt a little spooked by Lourdes's perceptiveness — such as her clothing size and which room she would choose — but was blissfully grateful.

Through a door was a small bathroom, and without hesitation Holly turned the shower on and stepped in, the knots in her body unwinding a bit as her skin felt the first shower she had taken in two weeks. She supposed she must have smelled pretty bad to her company, but she couldn't help it; there was nowhere on the road for homeless people to shower, and she had managed to break into the house of an old woman in France and take a shower before leaving for England. The heated water was heaven to her, and she simply stood there for long minutes, feeling bliss slide over her as her fears and worries dropped off like shed skin. Eventually she washed herself and cut the water short, feeling raw and naked to the environment once the layer of dirt over her skin had been scrubbed away, and changed into the green pajama pants and brown T-shirt Lourdes had left for her. Not bothering to look at her face in the mirror — for it had to look awful; peeling from sunburn and chafed from being washed — she climbed into bed and curled up into a ball, feeling very alone and alienated.

Holly fell asleep quickly despite her rushing mind, not having realized how fatigued her body really was from trying to throw off the drug she had been given in England, swimming for hours, and the high stress the afternoon had held. _The whole four months, really_, Holly thought sleepily as she sank gratefully into unconsciousness.

_Artemis screeched into the communicator as the plane plunged downward, alarms on the controls beeping erratically as the ground came closer and closer, and Holly screamed as they made impact, feeling dreamlike pain as the engine caught fire and the windshield shattered, the pilot's compartment crumpling on itself like tin foil. And then there was a sudden, silent still except for the movement and crackling of the fire. Holly reached over to Artemis, who was motionless, and shook his shoulder; his head rolled back, revealing his blank stare and bloody face. Holly moved, almost floating, to the rest of the plane. Butler and Juliet were heaped in a similar state as Artemis had; their bodies broken, the cabin slowly being consumed in fire as Holly sank to her knees, coming to terms with just how alone she really was —_

Holly's eyes flew open and adjusted to the semi-darkness of the room, her stomach in knots from the dream, which really could have been reality. So, so easily. She blinked, her eyes becoming accustomed to the half light, and then blinked again to make sure she wasn't still dreaming; a dark-haired boy was sitting in black pajama pants and a white shirt against the wall in front of her, his knees drawn to his chest, his shoulders slumped and his head hung. It didn't seem right, and vaguely disturbed Holly as she whispered, "Artemis?"

His head shot up and immediately Holly could tell something was wrong; there were deep bags under his eyes, telling her that he most certainly hadn't slept, and his skin had the sickly pallor of insomnia accompanied with a blotchy redness on his cheekbones, a thick white bandage marring his forehead. His eyes stared, haunted, at her as he muttered, "You were moaning in your sleep."

Holly stared back at him. _And you did nothing?_

Artemis closed his eyes and slid his head back against the rough rock wall. "I need to talk to you, Holly, without other people to overhear, because there is no doubt that it will upset you."

Just as Butler had predicted. Holly sat up, rubbing the sleep for her eyes and knowing that she had been out only a few hours tops. "Come up on the bed, Mud Boy. You yourself look like you could use some comfort."

Artemis stared blankly at her before sliding up and skulking over to the bed, his long, bare feet curling up once he sat down next to her, falling sideways to lay along the pillows. There was a long, weary silence until Artemis shifted to look her straight in the eyes.

"Earlier you mentioned completing the Ritual," Artemis said, looking like he very much didn't want to be saying what he was about to say. "But the thing is, Holly... I can't let you do that."

She raised her eyebrows, shocked; she had expected it to be something bad, but nothing like that. "What?"

"I — no, no. That came out much worse than I wanted it to, Holly, sorry," Artemis mumbled, fatigue taking its toll on him as he bit his lip, trying to get his words in order. "But the thing is... if you complete the Ritual, Foaly will find us. No doubt about it."

"What do you mean?" Holly demanded, trying very hard not to freak out; Artemis really couldn't understand what he was saying to her. Magic was to fairies what the sky was to humans; beautiful, wondrous, full of possibilities. Running hot felt so _good _— closest to what she could ever guess something like making love or becoming a parent would feel like. She stared at him, her mind reeling, burning at this new development in the horror her life had been for the last four months.

"He has sensors, Holly, very much like seismographs, that detect magical levels everywhere in the world. If you go anywhere where that magic will not be suspicious I can guarantee there will be other fairies there, and of course they will all know your face after what you supposedly did. If you're somewhere that the Ritual is not often completed at, that place will be an obvious place of suspicion, since the Ritual puts out huge amounts of magical power surge." Artemis took her hand and uncurled the fist she had made. "I'm sorry, Holly, truly I am, but..." He trailed off, his body tense, his face troubled.

"It's okay," Holly said after a moment; his eyes snapped back open from the closed they had been, taking in every detail of her facial expression to see if she was lying, but he found nothing but regretful honesty on her defiant visage. "I understand completely." She looked at him reproachfully. "But really, Artemis, can you relax so I don't feel like something is going to jump out of the shadows and eat me?"

Artemis watched her in disbelief before his face crumpled and he buried himself in a pillow, his thin, frail body shaking. Holly, completely startled to see him cry _again_, hesitated before laying next to him, drawing him close into a hug; a hug that said more than anything they could say to each other in words; his relief that she had accepted the news, his terror, his uncertainty, their deep, complicated but wonderful friendship, the pain, the pride and happiness, the anger and the disappointment, all in one embrace. Slowly, Artemis's shakes subsided and they drew apart, their fingers remaining linked as they both sank deep into unconsciousness, night falling above them.

* * *

Artemis woke with a start; he wasn't sure what had dragged him out euphoric sleep, but he was certainly not happy with it. He had no watch, and so he was unsure how much time had passed, but he could tell from the rigor mortis that had tried to sneak in that he had been asleep for quite some time. He sat up, blinking hard to clear the haze from his eyes and saw Butler in the doorway, smiling slightly at the sight of the two of them bunking together. Artemis slipped his hand out of Holly's as discreetly as he could and reached down to touch his toes, grimacing at his back popped. Butler chuckled.

"You two were out for a good eighteen hours," he rumbled, and Artemis sat up straight with this revelation, all good, peaceful feelings evaporating on the spot. Eighteen hours? They didn't have eighteen hours to waste! Butler rolled his eyes at his expression of anger and made to leave the room. "You needed it," he called over his shoulder, heading down the hallway.

Artemis kneaded his eyes with his fists and looked down at Holly as she stirred, blearily opening her eyes to the strange dim light of the room lit only by gas lamps. She half-smiled when she saw Artemis looking down at her, yawning as she sat up to rise to his level. "Morning, sunshine," she mumbled.

"Noon, actually," Artemis said, "but I get what you're playing at."

Holly crossed her arms over her knees, looking tired despite her hours of sleep. "God, Artemis. What a nightmare this whole thing is." She looked at him, a few inches taller than her sitting, and her eyes conveyed her words as she said, "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"Don't be," Artemis said, more harsh than he meant, and Holly flinched slightly as if afraid he would hit her. He sighed, blowing his stiff, salt-crusted overgrown hair from his eyes — he hadn't showered the night previous — and hung his head slightly, his gaze focused dully on his long toes. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I... sorry. For last night upstairs as well."

"It's okay," she muttered, and then wrinkled her nose, glaring playfully at him. "Go take a shower, Mud Boy; you stink."

Artemis scoffed, shoving her shoulder a bit. "You're one to talk, Miss I'll-stink-up-your-airplane Short."

"At least I didn't even have access to a shower," Holly groaned, flopping back onto the pillow. "A crazy rich kid like you should have no problem getting to one, but no, you just decided to leave the smell of salty seaweed in my bed."

"You never cease to amuse me," Artemis said dryly, and raised an eyebrow. "Your English is coming pretty well. All from memory?"

"Yeah. I spent so much time speaking it that my brain just sort of subconsciously picked it up." Holly scratched her stomach, which peeked out from her shirt. "Good thing, too."

"Indeed," Artemis said, but he was looking at her funny. She sat up again, raising an eyebrow.

"What's up with you, stinker? Considering the shower thing?"

Artemis felt a light blush creep over his cheeks, and he leaned close to Holly before she could see it, his pale, warm lips brushing up against her hair. "It might be strange," he murmured, "but it felt so natural for me to fall asleep with your hand in mine." And before Holly had time to blink in surprise he leapt up from the bed and headed back to his own room, leaving her with nothing to say but damning Artemis Fowl for being so cryptic.

Brunch was a somewhat quiet affair, Lourdes constantly on the phone, Juliet sketching out faces and muttering to herself, and Butler staring off into space, lost in his thoughts. Artemis, a fresh bandage on his head, and Holly spoke minimally while devouring the tortillas with _migas_ Lourdes had made; Artemis was surprised that Holly ate eggs, and joyfully scooped a huge portion on to her plate. Holly complained that he had really given her too much through eating through the whole thing until she realized that she had eaten everything, even the roasted hatch salsa that had dripped from the tortillas. Artemis howled with laughter at her astonished expression.

"You are such a pig!" he chuckled, drawing an indignant glare from Holly.

"Am not!" Holly retorted hotly. "I am a growing girl, not an stupid anorexic like you."

Artemis raised en eyebrow and switched to Gnommish so that Lourdes couldn't understand. "Growing?" he asked, and Butler chose to listen in.

Holly grimaced. "Guess I forget to mention that I had an illegal sprite put in a Pituitary gland a week after I escaped," she said back. "Or haven't you noticed that I'm up to your shoulders now?"

Artemis had noticed, of course, but had chosen not to say anything, for fear that the subject might have been touchy. Instead he chose to return to English, snapping, "I eat plenty, thank you," and shoving half of a _migas _filled tortilla into his mouth and promptly choking on it, leading Holly to dissolve into giddy laughter she hadn't felt in four months.

After Lourdes had made sure that everyone was well fed she sat down with Artemis and Butler to work out the logistics of getting them illegally into the United States while Juliet pulled Holly aside to arrange the details of her transformation to the girl she was currently calling Jane Doe. "We want to make sure you don't stand out at all," Juliet said softly so as not to disturb Artemis from his train of thought, which was constantly crashing and putting him in a very bad mood.

Holly raised an eyebrow. "So... Totally generic. A Mary-Sue. Unoriginal, boring, and simply undesirable."

Juliet chuckled, shaking her head. "You're going to New York, baby. That means you have to be weird enough to be normal."

Less than ten feet away, Artemis lost his patience with himself and roughly carded his hand through his long hair, still slightly damp from the shower he had gratefully taken before brunch. "The problem is —"

Lourdes cut him off sharply. "The people tracking you are amazingly technologically advanced, 'more than I could imagine,' and could find you through indefinite satellite, internet, and governmental databases. Yes, I know, Artemis Fowl. You have said so many times." Her eyes flashed. "My plan is thus; I give you a car that will not stand out and you drive up through Central America to the border town Heroica Carborca. There is a guard there I use to smuggle in illegals. His name is Jose Villarreal; he will let you through, provided you give him this." She handed him an envelope with elegant handwriting on it. "He will scan it to make absolutely sure it is from be and then give it back to you and let you through. You will come out in Brownsville, Texas, and you can make your way up to New York City through the United States in whatever ways you see fit." She picked up a larger envelope stuffed to the brim with cash. "This will get you to New York, providing you with food, gas money, and residence. Use it wisely; it is all the untraceable currency I could get together in time for you to leave." Butler took this, placing it beside him on the couch. Lourdes's eyes lingered on the envelope as she said "I expect it all paid back, along with a fee of 30,000 US dollars."

"That's all?" Artemis blurted, surprised that she had docked the cost so much.

"You are in a very dangerous and difficult situation, Mr. Fowl," Lourdes said. "It would not do for your characters to suddenly pay $100,000 to the Japanese ambassador's wife in Panama; these people looking for you surely are on the lookout for any sort of suspicious activity, especially in this area." She handed them a set of keys. "These belong to a silver Ford Fusion two blocks East of the place you will be leaving here from," she said. "Despite its looks, it is a high-security car, and what the owner of the fishing company down here drives."

"Where we will be leaving from?" Artemis asked. "And when exactly would that be?"

"There is an underground tunnel leading from this house to the cellar of an abandoned farm a mile away from here. It may still be flooded in parts from the recent hurricane we had a bit to the North of here, but there will be dry clothes and spray for temporarily tanning your skin." Her eyes lingered over Artemis's pale complexion. "The Full Monty is already in the trunk of that car; Juliet gave me the description she decided for each of you, and so there are appropriate clothing items in there as well. Is this suitable to fit your needs?"

"Yes, thank you," Artemis said. "When do you need us to leave by?"

"Six this evening."

Artemis made to glance at his satellite watch only to remember that it had been ruined in the crash. He scowled, looking up at Butler, who murmured, "It's 1:52."

"We have approximately four hours to be gone," Artemis concluded. "I would say we need about an hour to get through your underground passage and another to check up on everything. Until then..." He stood, smoothing the creases in the embarrassing brown kickers and loose-armed cotton shirt Lourdes had provided. "All seems to be in order for now, and if you don't mind, I will see to it that I cram another two hours of sleep into my body — I don't have any clue to when I will get another good opportunity."

"It's not like we're going to be in one of those gas-guzzlers for three days," Holly said sarcastically, having overheard. Artemis shot her a look and he began to descend down the ladder.

"I don't expect I will be sleeping much," he said simply as he disappeared under the house, his voice rising up from below. "It's just not the sort of thing my brain allows."

* * *

**For C.A.W.**


	8. Chapter 7

**There is a poll on my profile giving three titles that are for three ideas I have for the next fic. Please vote.  
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**CONTENT: Mild sensuality and mild language**

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Chapter 7: What Carried us Away

Artemis gagged slightly at the rotting stench of the tunnel they had been walking through for ten minutes now; it smells of dying animals and frothy, muggy seas. Next to him, Juliet yelped in surprise as her foot sank into a deep, muddy puddle she had been unable to see in the gloom illuminated only by the flashlight Butler held, bringing up the rear. Holly pulled her out of the muck as Artemis continued forward, wrinkling his nose as water continued to drip from the ceiling. If they were traveling about three miles per hour — normal walking speed — he estimated that they had about ten more minutes of this horror to go through. When Lourdes had said "underground passageway," he had pictured a narrow tunnel hewed from the rock, the ground paved in rough concrete, or at least small rocks. When he had stepped down into the hole that was located under Holly's dresser, however, he found himself sinking knee-deep into mud with a disgusting squelching sound. Butler had followed, pulling him out into a drier patch of mud that sucked around his shoes, and then Holly and Juliet. As they had began walking it had become clear that the tunnel was little more than something Mulch would have left behind, albeit larger and most likely more wet and flooded than anything the proud kleptomaniac would have left behind.

"Scared of the mud, Mud Boy?" Holly muttered for only him to hear, and glowered at her, squinting through the darkness in vain search for the end. He chose to ignore her juvenile comment and was repaid by stepping halfway into a thin, deep hole, falling to the ground with a pained yelp.

Butler was by his side immediately, pulling his foot out of the hole, and when he touched his ankle Artemis hissed in pain, his fingers digging into the wet ground beneath him in attempt to counteract the stabbing feeling into his lower leg. "Twisted," he groaned, attempting to stand but falling as he did. Butler caught him, handing the flashlight to Juliet and picking Artemis up as if he were a small child, much to the young man's displeasure. "It's fine," he groused. "I can walk, Butler. Put me down."

"You can't even put weight on it," Butler replied simply, beginning to walk again. "As long as you don't mess with it and elevate it on ice in the car, it should be on its way to healing by the time we reach New York."

Artemis scowled but accepted the humiliation of being carried bridal style through the dripping misery of the underground tunnel. Eleven stinking wet minutes later (Artemis had been counting) the tunnel slanted upward and ended, opening up to a gloomy, damp basement illuminated only by the light trickling in from between the loose floorboards that formed the ceiling. Butler set Artemis down on a wooden crate while he and Juliet fetched the dry clothes and cans of spray-on tan. Artemis went first; he pulled off his shirt and Butler sprayed him generously, leaving a sparkling wet layer of pigmentation over his skin. Artemis quickly changed into his new clothes, careful to mind his twisted ankle, and the others followed suit until they more or less could blend in with the surrounding people. The clothing they had put on was ragged, though well-made, and would help them blend in to the surroundings of Panama. Once they were thoroughly disguised they slipped out of the basement, Artemis having ripped up his old, muddied shirt and fashioned a brace of sorts around his ankle and walking with his arm around Juliet for support, emerging in an alleyway dominated by trash. They quickly walked the two blocks to the East and found the car; the Fusion was slightly battered and covered with dirt, but once Butler had performed a thorough bomb check and opened the car it was found to be as nice on the inside as a top-of-line limousine. Holly and Artemis clambered into the backseat while Juliet and Butler got to the front, Juliet already armed with a thick notebook and pen, her mutterings carrying to the back as they pulled away from the curb and began their journey through Panama.

Artemis didn't wait a moment to get down to business; he elevated his swollen ankle, putting an instant ice pack on it, changed the bandage on his head, and began to relentlessly drill Holly on her knowledge of the English language. It seemed Holly was pretty much what one would call fluent — she could carry on an intelligent conversation, and her vocabulary was pretty extensive, seeing as she had spent a lot of her time on the surface hanging around with Artemis, but when it came to common, everyday slang she was lost. Artemis spent his time teaching Holly slang, which was embarrassing at times due to the content of certain terms society had decided to twist around, until they had reached the border of Costa Rica, several hours after their initial starting point.

There was no problems once they reached the country line; border patrol was minimal, and Butler flashed Lourdes's envelope to the man who checked them, and asked where the nearest gas station was. And so continued the long journey.

Evening shifted into night and night ran its course to day. The sun was rising when Artemis and Holly fell asleep on their separate sides of the car, and Juliet took over the driving so Butler could get a few hours of sleep as well. Both of the siblings had driven at an average of 100 miles per hour, as was Artemis's suggestion, and they had made it to the border between Mexico and the United states within by eight o'clock that evening.

Butler slowly pulled up at the border patrol in Heroica Carborca, Mexico, asking in Spanish to see Jose Villarreal, and the patrolman blinked once before calling the portly Mexican man over to the car. Butler handed him the envelope and Villarreal pulled out a thin scanner, passing it over the seal while the other guard turned a blind eye. The scanner beeped and Villarreal handed back the envelope, telling Butler to give Lourdes his regards before the car passed through the border, the bridge crossing over the Rio Grande. Once Brownsville had passed and country road returned, allowing Butler to speed up to 100 again, Artemis spoke.

"We have approximately 32 hours left of the drive," he said, sitting up straight, and Holly, who had been dozing, snapped to attention. "From here on out we have to be much more careful; people in the United States tend to notice illegal activity more than those in South America." He pushed back his long hair from his eyes. "What do you have for us so far, Juliet?"

The youngest Butler unbuckled her seat belt and clambered into the back of the car, bringing a notebook with her. On the first page was a sketch of a head-and-shoulders mannequin, a few facial features lightly sketched. "This is you," she told Artemis, tapping the face. "We're going to get you the stereotypical 'femme' style that the scene boys get. Following me so far?"

"Not in the slightest," Artemis said, frowning. "'Scene boy?' May I ask what these 'scene boys' are like?"

"Absolutely. They're the ones everyone thinks are gay but they're usually not. And they always have their hair dyed in some way. And eyeliner." Juliet looked back at her notes, scrawled unreadably across the page. "We'll work out the details of all of our appearances later when I have access to the Full Monty." Juliet scribbled a note down, which looked like someone had been doodling loops on the paper. "And, of course, we'll introduce you to the typical bands that scene kids listen to; My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Owl City... the list goes on. Your taste in music should change frequently, and you have to be obsessed with rainbows, okay? You strive to be different, meaning you're conforming to the whole knock-off Ray Bans look." She tapped her chin with her pen, frowning and muttering to herself; "We should find some Toms, Converse... no, Vans. Skater shoes." She nodded, and looked between him and Holly. "You will share an apartment with Holly posing as friends, roommates, or boyfriend and girlfriend. I personally think 'roommates with benefits' would be a very good way for you two to start off." She grinning slyly and winked as Artemis massaged his forehead.

"Holly, you are going to get a completely full make over from the plastic — ears, nose, boobs, brow, eyes and lips, so I'll have to wait until your skin starts to heal before I can decide the details on you. You're going to go for the surfer-California girl thing, okay? You're a flirt, lots of saying 'like' and you talk with a whine. You like short shorts and wearing other's guys' shirts. Think super-sweet slut." She scribbled something out on the page and wrote down another note. "You listen to whatever music is popular, plus a few bands you find on your own. Perhaps the Shins, for some originality, Jack's Mannequin... yeah. You're very one-dimensional and kind of stupid in a cute-ish way."

"Dom, you won't be going out much since you're so recognizable. You'll have to shave every scrap of hair on your body every single day. Can you do that?" Butler's gaze flashed back at her, questioning. "Your character has a very aggressive form of leukemia. You'll have to cut down to one or two meals a day and run a lot so that you can lose weight quick enough. No more muscle workouts. Sorry, bro — that means no sparring either. You have to waste away a bit. Loose clothing, depressed, given up on life. Don't listen to music much. Can you handle that?" Butler nodded, his eyes fixed on the quickly darkening road ahead, and Juliet flipped to the final page.

"I myself will be heading into the wonderful, oh-so-happy world of goths." She pulled a face. "I don't think I have to elaborate for you, right, Artemis?" The young man, who was staring out the window in thought, shook his head. "Good," Juliet continued. "Dom and I will be in the same apartment building, but different floors. Don't know each other other than 'that one goth chick upstairs' and 'the cancer guy down the way.'" She looked up at her brother's face, impassive in the rear view mirror. "I'm sorry Dom, but you stick out too much."

"It's fine," Butler said shortly, and Juliet nodded slowly, and then ran over a few more points with Artemis before clambering into the front seat again, once again plunging the car into silence once more.

Darkness fell, and the car sped through dark country two-lane highways, only the flashing trees out the window, visible for only an instant before vanishing, prisoner to the darkness. There was no sound but the rotation of the tires at top speeds over rural road. Artemis gazed out into the flashing blackness, the illumination from the headlights of the car, but there was nothing besides the empty trees and shadows. No answers to any of the thousands of questions he was pondering were out there in the dark gloom of Texas countryside.

He sighed softly through his nose, running a hand through his hair and then letting his chin rest on his palm, his forehead creasing with the weight of his troubles. His experience with losing Butler had rattled him; what would his family think once they heard the announcement of the plan crash if they hadn't already? They would think him dead, a prisoner to the cold, unforgiving ocean, dissolving away in the salt water until he was nothing. And how painful it would be for them. But they had each other, didn't they? That's why he was making this choice to protect Holly from the People. Holly, unlike the grieving family back home in wonderful, green Ireland, had nobody but him.

A car passed in the other direction, illuminating the car for a split second, but it was enough to bounce Holly's reflection off of her window into Artemis's. Because it was only a flash, he hadn't been able to get a good look, but he saw the terribly dead expression, and the mascara Juliet had playfully applied many hours ago back in Panama smeared from watery eyes that refused to spill over. Something inside of him broke, and his mind quickly review the past hours and hours he had been with her. Had he once given her his condolences? Once comforted her, assured that she was not alone in the world? What kind of a person was he, just letting her suffer in silence? Holly really and truly deserved better than how he had treated her; coldly, scientifically, criminally. Not like a best friend would normally treated his other.

Silently, he pressed his foot down on the switch that raised the glass partition dividing the back of the car from the front. It raised with a quiet hum, deafening in the silence, sealed all off all sound that could pass between the backseat and the front. Artemis caught Butler's glance in the rear view mirror as he unbuckled his seat belt.

Holly took her stare away from the rushing wilderness outside the temporary safety of the car and slowly turned her head to stare at him instead. Before she could react from surprise, Artemis had slid across the backseat and wrapped her in his arms, pressing her tightly to his chest.

"Artemis," she whispered, her voice hoarse and tight, as if she had been repressing tears ever since Juliet had crawled back to the front. No, since before that, for all the four months she had been on the run for her life and hadn't shed a single tear. Four whole damn months of mental and physical torture, and not a single tear. _Cry, damn it_, he thought. _Cry to me._

"Holly, I'm sorry," he replied. "I'm so, so sorry."

"I can't…" Holly began, and then started to cry, gripping the collar of Artemis's shirt with small, graceful hands. He rocked her back and forth slightly, keeping her close to him and feeling her shiver from the emotional release. Pain flowed between them; pain, hatred, sorrow, anger. Happiness. Artemis buried his face in her hair that hadn't been washed in a couple of days, smelling the scent of wet, rich earth and soap that was Holly, whispering softly into her ear, telling her to let it all out to him, to trust him, and to never, never let him go, because that's what friends were for. What _more _than friends were for.

He knew he had felt like _that _about Holly for some time now; he had shoved it to the back of his mind, away from where it could acknowledged and acted upon, away from where it could be shown, away from where it could do harm, from pointless longing and wishes. But things had changed. The LEP would be wanted to kill them both now, Artemis for aiding and abetting the criminal who did nothing to harm anybody. They were on the run, strain displaying their emotions more than they would really like, truths becoming burdens if they were not told. Suddenly, things had gotten more desperate, and at the risk of sounding cliche, Artemis knew it was now or never.

His hand traveled from Holly's back and up her neck until the skin between his thumb and index finger curled around her jaw, tipping her head up to meet his, and in the dark, cold interior of the car leading them to a new life, Artemis Fowl kissed the trembling lips of Holly Short.

* * *

Juliet started from her sleepy trance as she heard the partition rise. "Why'd he close it, Dom?" she asked, sitting up and blinking furiously to clear the drowsiness from her eyes. "What's going on?"

"Take a wild guess," Butler muttered, flicking his eyes down from the rear view mirror, keeping his eyes firmly on the road.

"Something quite out of character, I would say." Juliet smiled, a little sadly. "It only takes a personal apocalypse to bring Artemis out of his own little reality." She reached up to turn the rearview mirror, and then hesitated. "Is it rude to…?"

"Very," Butler said, and then chuckled, glancing up again. "But I don't think they would notice. Artemis has Holly a little preoccupied."

"Aw, finally, he makes a move." Juliet turned the mirror to her angle, and grinned broadly. "I knew from the moment we reached shore that there was something going on between those two. Really, how long has he been obvious and pretending that no one knows?"

"Years."

"Hm." She turned the mirror back to Butler's angle, and then on second thought turned it around completely so that the reflective side wasn't visible. "Let's give them some privacy, shall we?"

"I'm going to need that mirror once we get on a busier road. It's about two miles off."

"But until then... you can manage, can't you, bro? Let Artemis chill for a little bit. He's way stressed. It could be a stress relief thing, or maybe he's having an emotional breakdown."

"Or maybe he's finally met someone he can really trust," Butler said, and the front seat once more fell into quiet.

* * *

Artemis had his hands resting on Holly's neck, and even as he kissed her he felt tears drip onto his fingers at a sickeningly rapid rate. She shook in his arms, but responded to the embrace. It was slightly awkward, and a little frightening for both of them; unfamiliar, uncharted waters so deep that the bottom was nowhere near visible. Artemis let go of the lips his mouth had captured when he felt his lungs prod him in reminder that even a genius needed to breath, and when he pulled away Holly punched him in the chest, knocking the wind momentarily out of him.

"You idiot," she sobbed. "You idiot, Artemis, why do I…?" She broke down and crumpled in her seat. Artemis undid her seat belt, and showing an extraordinary display of personal strength pulled her into his lap, where she retook his shirt collar in her grasp and wrapped her fingers into his. Artemis leaned against the seat and rested his cheek against the top of her head, her hair tickling his nose slightly. His lips, tingling and warm from the heated kiss, flicked upward in a solitary smile.

"It's not reasonable of them to do this to you," he whispered as the miles passed, breaking the silence that reigned around Holly's ragged breathing. "You of all people deserve the finest, Holly, not exile and endeavored execution. You have nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to impede you from holding your head high. You have assisted the People above all others. Do not be frightened. We will keep you safe. I can assure you that above anything else. You will be safe."

"Will you leave me?" Holly asked from the depths of his jacket, her a voice muffled and pitiful sound that made Artemis burn inside. His hand, which had been stroking her hair, froze, and he stiffened. She looked up with mismatched tear-filled eyes, her mouth slightly open.

Artemis scowled. "I will do no such thing. What on Earth made you determine that?"

She flinched. "I'm sorry. I just…"

Artemis stopped her by pressing his lips against hers. "I will never leave you, Holly Short. By no means will I _ever_ leave you."

"Thank you," she whispered, barely audible.

Artemis opened his mouth to reply, but she curled up against him, her head over his heart, and he found himself biting his lip to keep from crying yet again, the emotions in his head clamoring to be acknowledged. After a moment the feeling passed, and he could only feel darkness, emptiness, and fatigue swirling around in his mind. He looked up into the mirror and met Butler's deep navy eyes that stared right back. There was a moment of silent communication between them before, with grace, Butler's eyes went back to the road, and Artemis's back to the window.

While on the outside he maintained a cool exterior, Artemis seethed inside. It was so unlike the People to go for blood, but when they did they had to go for someone who was completely undeserving. Holly had suffered enough in her life, for God's sake; who were they to sentence her to death with no more evidence than a few particles of DNA? It must have been a set up, for her DNA to be somewhere she had never been, but from who, and for what reasons? What could someone possibly want enough to ruin another's life?

_Gold_, and small voice at the back of his head murmured, and Artemis felt guilt stab him in the gut. He had lied, cheated, and wormed his way through the system to get to the People's gold the first time he had met Holly. He had been on of the people who had caused Holly's suffering.

But if it hadn't been for him, she would have had no one to come to on the surface when she all she needed was a friend.

Artemis blew his hair out of his eyes with a puff of air, leaning against the cool window as outside the safety of the car the night passed softly by.

Another full 24 hours passed, and it wasn't until two in the morning the day after they had reached the United States that they reached New York. Artemis directed Butler into Newark, New Jersey, and pointed him to a Crown Plaza Suits for the night. Juliet pulled out new clothes for them, and, not sparing time to be bashful, Holly and Artemis changed in the backseat before climbing out of the car for the first time in days while Butler and Juliet sped off to find a different hotel.

Artemis moaned slightly as he leaned against the wall of the hotel, massaging his sore knees, relishing in the luxury of stretching. Holly just stood on the sidewalk, clad in dark blue jeans and some obscure band T-shirt, rocking the messy ponytail I-just-crawled-out-of-bed look. They stood in the fresh outdoor air for a moment before Holly shyly slipped her hand into Artemis's and they made their way into the hotel's lobby.

It was tiled in reflective cream, and the ceiling was low until they passed the front desk, where it rose up to the ninth floor, the elevators shooting up columns to the various floors, the rooms clustered around the central lobby. There was a small bar area and a hotel cafe as well, and though Holly looked pleased with Artemis's choice of residence, his nose wrinkled as he scowled and tugged her back to the front desk. They made a stereotypical pair, approaching the clerk yammering on the phone behind the desk; Holly, in her sloppy attire, and Artemis, wearing a black sweatshirt and ridiculous cargo pants. Holly caught sight of his distaste while they waited for the clerk's attention and rolled her red, swollen eyes.

"God forbid we stay in a hotel under $500 a night," she muttered as the clerk hung up and started typing on her computer with a very bored expression.

Artemis glowered at the wall. "And God forbid we stay in a hotel where they cover the rafters," he retorted, nodding the nine stories up to the exposed steel beams supporting the ceiling. "And Parkes was under £500 a night. Honestly, Holly, I do cheap, but this is ridiculous."

Holly gave a harsh laugh as she grabbed the room key the clerk offered. "Artemis, this hotel is $150 a night. Cheap is something like $150 a _week_. You know, complete with the roach infestation and the AIDS infected heroin needles sticking out of the mattress." She led the way through the lobby, ignoring the looks she was getting from the drunk men at the bar. "You picked the hotel out, anyway."

"I was working on a cure, you know," Artemis said in a low voice, resigning himself to a night of drippy faucets and creaky beds. "For AIDS. And I thought I was getting close; that was why I hadn't going outside much, not that Mother needed to know that, but I was confident I had come very, very close to getting the cure. I was considering infecting myself with the virus instead of endangering others with a 'cure' that's never been tested in a body before, because the results could be catastrophic — what?" His scientific rambling, which Holly knew only happened when he was under tremendous strain, stopped cold as they reached the chrome elevators and he caught her odd expression in the cracked finish.

"Who are you and what have you done with Artemis Fowl?" she questioned, stepping aside the elevator as it opened. "Endangering yourself instead of others? Really, and just yesterday you were willing to sacrifice my life for gold."

Artemis was quiet as she gently pressed the button for floor seven; her remark had hit home, but he wasn't about to let her know that. "Artemis Fowl is gone now," he said softly. "Killed in an accident caused by faulty piloting of his Lear Jet DS-45. I have had a fake recording in the black box ever since I learned to fly, just in case the plane went down and we did not want to be found." He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the reflective surface of the elevator. "Juliet will decide on a new identity for me."

It took Holly until the doors slid open to realize what he was saying. "Wait a minute, you don't mean —!"

"We are _not _having his conversation in the hallway," Artemis growled, snatching the room keys and glancing at the number before heading down the track of doors leading down the wall overlooking the lobby seven feet below. He unlocked room 715 and pushed Holly in before closing and locking it behind him. "Now you may verbally abuse me," he said in a resigned tone.

Holly flopped down on the nearest of the two beds in the suite. "Damn it, Artemis!" She pounded her small fists into the pillows. "I thought we were coming to New York in disguise, not in a total reconstruction of identity; changing the names too, are we? All of your faces? Just so I can hide behind you? No! I'm not going to let you throw your life away for this. Genius or not, you _do _realize that because you're doing this, you're aiding and abetting the criminal and —"

"The LEP wants me dead," Artemis said dully. "But fairies have no constitution over human actions."

"That's not my damn point!" Holly yelled. "Because you're aiding and abetting me, the LEP is throwing away all laws to fetch me. Imagine the damage we could do — you, a deranged criminal genius, and me, a mad mass murderer! They don't care about laws now that I've gotten to you. Don't you understand? By doing this, you've sentenced yourself to death!"

"Juliet's good with fake IDs."

"It doesn't matter how good she is, Artemis! Foaly's technology can see right through it! This is not a joke! Not a game! They. Will. _Kill_. You."

With one fluid motion Artemis crossed the room and grabbed Holly by the shoulders, pulling her to his chest and kissing her roughly. When he let go see looked dizzy, a little punch drunk, and ready to punch his lights out. Artemis backed away to a safe distance before whispering "We're in this together, like it or not." He carded a hand through his long hair and continued in a brisk, businesslike tone. "Now, no more of this; Butler and Juliet will be joining us soon." He clicked a light on — the room had been in near darkness — and surveyed the room with a slightly disgusted expression. Holly gave up, following his gaze with her own and she slumped back onto the bed, sighing softly.

"Oh, please," she grumbled. "This is nowhere near as bad as some of the apartments I've had. It's a little posh by my standards, actually. Look, it even has a little balcony."

Artemis slowly walked across the corporate carpet, pulling back the bland, heavy curtain once he reached the sliding door. "With a lovely view of a couple of dumpsters, the parking lot, and retail hell."

Holly rolled over, stuffing her face in the pillows. "Gods, you're picky. At least it doesn't overlook a druggie hobo dwarf camp. Which is good, because the ones outside my window rarely wore clothes." She turned her head to eye him wanly as he lay down next to her. "Count your blessings, Arty. They're about to start coming few and far between."

Artemis sighed and nestled his face into the pillows, smothering himself. Holly tugged the ends of his overgrown hair until he rolled over, drawing in deep breaths to regulate his breathing as his sharp eyes traced a crack in the ceiling as they settled uncomfortably into silence, Holly watching Artemis and Artemis watching the ceiling until her fingers brushed forearm, which was curled up so that his hand rested near his shoulder, and his face turned until his mismatched eyes met hers, the exact opposite of his. Hazel searching blue and blue searching hazel. The mirroring was trippy to say the least, and they felt themselves sliding together almost involuntarily.

The moment was ruined by an almost predictable knock at the door accompanied by a voice, muffled by the cheap wood; "Hurry up and open the door, kiddies. Your nanny's in the building, and she's not in a good mood."


	9. Chapter 8

**There is a poll on my profile for the next full Artemis Fowl fic I will do once Half the Perfect World is finished. Titles only. Please vote.**

**CONTENT: Language, some sensuality**

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Chapter 8:As Dreams Go By

Artemis let Juliet in after several minutes of questions, only then letting her grumpily lug in her huge assortment of heavy-duty black plastic bins, which he could only imagine were filled with all sorts of horrors.

"Dom will be up in a few hours or so," she grumbled, glancing at boxes, somehow deciding what was inside them just by looking at the box top, which looked the same all around, and shoving them in separate parts of the suite's "living room," which was occupied by a vinyl couch and a plastic desk and chair. Holly drifted into the room, gazing with vague interest as Juliet ordered Artemis around until all the boxes were open and the room, once nearly bare, was messy.

Once she had successfully mutated the hotel room into a tornado site, Juliet scooped a bunch of cans, boxes, and clothes into her arms and promptly kicked Holly out of the room, ordering Artemis into the bathroom before locking herself inside with him.

_Let the transformation begin, _Holly thought wryly, curling up on the bed she had just vacated moments ago, her eyes glazing over and staring at nothing as she let her mind sink so deep into thought that anything she was thinking slowly dissipated and made room for the raw feelings that made up her entity, constructing her bones, structuring her organs, melting into her blood. She didn't know how much time passed until she felt the weight on the bed change; it could have been hours or it could have been minutes until Butler's hand rested on her leg and she dragged herself painfully out of her half-sleep.

"What?"

"I asked if you're all right," Butler murmured, his face etched into the perfect picture of concern.

"No," Holly said, brushing her hair back from her face as she sat up in a futile attempt to be more at his height, but no matter how many pituitary glands she got she would never be as tall as Butler. "But are we ever?"

"Touché," Butler smirked, uncharacteristically kicking off his shoes and drawing his feet up on the bed. Holly gawked, poking at his three-and-a-half inch toes.

"Your feet are bigger than my face!" she exclaimed, laughing as she tried to tickle his socked soles, but he simply raised an eyebrow in amusement at her attempt to get a rise out of him. "Seriously, Butler, what did they feed you as a child? That's insane!"

"That's genetics," Butler said simply, falling back onto the bed hard enough to make Holly's body momentarily lift off the surface. "So, Holly," he began, and something in his tone made her roll her eyes and slap his feet.

"Gods, for a supposedly amazing bodyguard you suck at being subtle," she groused, wrinkling her nose as Butler smirked. "What? So I had a breakdown in the backseat of your car and didn't put up too much of a fuss when I had a friend comfort me?"

"You mean, a 'friend-with-benefits' comfort you?" Butler asked, now grinning broadly. "Now, I wouldn't normally do this, but Artemis has never had a girlfriend, so I have you check."

"I am not his girlfriend!"

"As his mentor it is my job to make sure he doesn't embarrass himself," Butler continued as if he hadn't heard her. "Did he stick his tongue down your throat?"

Holly buried her face in the pillow to muffle her laughter.

"I take that as a no. Good. Has he tried to feel you up yet?"

A loud snorting noise erupted from the pillow, sending Holly into more surprised giggles as Butler burst out in deep, booming chuckles. "You snort when you laugh!"

"You weren't supposed to know about the snorting thing!" Holly howled between gales of laughter, surfacing, her face purple, from the pillow. "That's the skeleton in my closet!" She snorted again, though afterward her laughter was covered by Butler's mirth, which expanded to fill the whole room. It was oddly peaceful to Holly, gasping for breath, clutching her stomach while rolling around on the bed and mussing up the bedspread next to Butler, who was cracking up, a rare treat. After a while the laughing calmed and eventually ceased to exist, giving way to comfortable silence.

"How long do you think he'll stick with it?" Holly asked after a time, breaking the protective quiet around them with an earth-shattering question. "And all of you, for that matter. You have lives outside of this; you have friends, families, hopes, dreams. Eventually you'll get tired of pretending."

"We'll be here as long as you need us," Butler replied.

Holly laughed humorlessly. "Forever, you mean."

"Juliet may complain sometimes, but you'll never hear a word from either Artemis or myself," he said, perhaps a little sharper than he meant to. "You were the first real friend Artemis ever had, and still one of the few. You're invaluable to him. You of all people should know that."

"But Juliet didn't volunteer for this," Holly said bitterly. "She doesn't even remember me. Much less what I did to her the time Artemis kidnapped me, though that may be for the better."

"Juliet chose to come along. Artemis told her the risks. She could just have easily have gone back to Fowl Manor."

"And done what?" Holly cried, her fingers playing at the roots of her hair, threatening to contract and rip the strands from their follicles. "Say 'Sorry, Mrs. Fowl, but your son ran off with his bodyguard and some chick and I left them?' You know she wouldn't — couldn't — have done that. She's a Butler."

"You may not know it, Holly, but you sound like you're trying to make yourself believe that this is all your fault and that you've ruined all of our lives," Butler said abruptly, and Holly blanched. "Do you know what Artemis was doing day after day before this happened?"

"AIDS research," Holly whispered.

"He sat, day after day, night after night, in front of those damn computers of his, researching and theorizing and discussing with the world's top medical scientists. He didn't sleep. He didn't eat. He worked. Do you know why?"

"To do good?" Holly guessed.

"No. Despite all the morals he's grown these past years, Artemis still mainly does things in his own interest; he can't help it. It's hardwired into him. He was born a very intuitive child, and the main instinct in humans is to fend for themselves. He grew up learning, which was all he wanted in substitution for the proper childhood he should have had. Artemis started research on AIDS because he was bored."

"_Bored?"_

"He committed himself to it. He lived it, breathed it, dreamed it when he slept. He made amazing progress, got closer than any other human being had ever gotten before — no surprise, of course, but he took pride in it, and began to fade. I made a deal with him; three meals a day, and at least eight hours of sleep, and he could spend all his other time researching. Last week he told me, two or so days before we left for London, that he had beaten the virus in a petri dish, and was ready to try in on a living, breathing test subject."

"Himself," Holly breathed, remembering their fight vividly.

"Boredom made him reckless. If the opera hadn't been in London, and we hadn't miraculously found you in Haymarket, Artemis would be the proud bearer of the world's most vicious STD, and probably a few horrific side effects that came along with his imperfect cure."

Holly closed her eyes. "But —"

"Not another word, Holly. We will not leave. And you are not the cause. End of story. You're our dear friend, and we are going to help you until the end of the world."

Holly laughed softly. "Well then, that's not too far off. December 21st, 2012. What, only two and a half years away?"

"Less."

"What characters we are," she muttered, rolling onto her stomach. "Frond, I'm hungry. This Human Growth Hormone is speeding up my metabolism and I haven't eaten in, like, eight hours. Is there food in this room?" Her eyes roved the small space; the beds, the side table, the fake wood dresser. "Nope." She blinked in the sunlight that suddenly broke through the crack in the curtain; a lot of time had passed since they had arrived, more than she had thought. How long had Artemis been in the bathroom, silently being transformed by Juliet into an entirely different person?

Holly didn't know at what point she fell into dreamless sleep, but some time later she felt herself awoken by Butler gently shaking her shoulder. She sat up, blinking rapidly to clear the sleep from her eyes, and glanced blearily around the room, seeing nothing noteworthy. "What is it?"

"Juliet wants you awake. They're about to come out, and she wants your opinion."

"Gods, what took her so long?"

Butler smiled slightly. "She had Artemis help her with her own disguise. And these things do take a while if done right."

The door to the bathroom opened, revealing a slumped, acne-ridden girl with her hair dyed black. Holly's mouth fell open as she realized that this was Juliet in disguise; she had molded a bulbous nose onto her face, and bags under her eyes, and then completely covered her face in acne and pale powder make-up. Her eyes, sunken in their raccoon make-up, stared sullenly out of the sockets as Holly's gaze roamed over the attire that Juliet Butler would never have been caught dead in; heavy, scuffed boots, loose black pants covered in safety-pins and a few chains, and a black jacket that proclaimed her a Rob Zombie fan.

"Wow," Holly said slowly.

"Does it work?" Juliet asked, more to Butler than to Holly, her voice husky and dry.

"You are going to kill your voice like that."

"It's okay. My character doesn't talk much." Juliet grimaced. "Am I unrecognizable?"

"Completely." Butler stood, his face solemn. "You, not talking? Insanity."

"Yeah, yeah. You're freaking hilarious, Dom." Juliet stuck her head back in the bathroom. "You ready, boy?"

There were some muted mumblings from behind the door, and a completely unrecognizable young man emerged from the bathroom. His hair, cut to fall diagonally over his eyes, was auburn streaked with bleached blond, nearly hiding his color-contact covered green eyes that stared straight at Holly, distracting her for the moment. Then she realized that the face she was staring at was completely unfamiliar; there were freckles across the nose, which hooked outward, and eyeliner around the eyes. He wore a black wife beater under an loose red plaid shirt, and the skinniest jeans Holly had ever seen in her life. Black and white checkered Vans that seemed too big for the legs that protruded from them stuck out from under the black jeans. Holly realized she was gawking.

"I think I did my job well," Juliet chuckled, and Artemis scowled, flipping the hair out of his eyes. "Can you tell it's Artemis?" she asked, looking to Butler for an answer. He shook his head stately in means of response, and Juliet sighed. "Good. Dom and I will head back now; I'll do his for him back at our place. Holly, you have your surgery tomorrow morning. Don't eat anything until then, okay?"

"Shit," Holly muttered.

"Artemis, don't go outside this room until I deliver your fake-IDs. Okay? You remember what I said about doing your roots once a week and about taking the glue off your face when you go to sleep?" She didn't pause to give him a chance to speak before heading out the door, leaving Butler to sit and wait for five minutes to pass before leaving after her, throwing the room into a slightly awkward silence. Artemis slumped against the wall, head down, folding his fingers.

"Are you okay?" Holly asked softly, and his head shot up as if he were surprised she had asked.

"Fine," he said after a moment to long. "Just thinking."

She rolled off the bed and padded soft across the threadbare corporate carpet, sitting across from him so that their knees were almost touching. "Are you sure?" she questioned gently.

"I..." Artemis's brow creased and he closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall with a slightly pained expression, but it smoothed out almost instantly. "Yes, I think so, Holly. Thank you."

"Artemis." Holly placed a hand on his knee, and one eye opened to look warily at it as if it were a snake preparing to bite him. "A genius you may be, but please don't insult my intelligence. What that question really means is 'What's wrong and how can I help?'"

Artemis stared at her for a moment, gauging her with his eyes before speaking. "I'm worried. That's all."

"Elaborate."

"Holly, no, I —"

She sat up onto her knees, startling him with her sudden movements. She caught his face in her hands as he recoiled involuntarily, and touched her forehead to his, looking him right in his wide, surprised eyes. "I want you to trust me, Arty."

Artemis swallowed, trying to edge away from her discreetly without breaking contact. "I do trust you."

"Then why won't you tell me what's wrong?" He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again before Holly continued speaking. "You still don't really trust anyone but yourself, do you? Not me, not even Butler. Because you feel like you need to be perfect."

"No!" Artemis snapped indignantly, standing up, knocking Holly over in the process. "That is _not_ true!"

"Artemis, I know you better than you think," Holly said, standing alongside him, her voice starting to quake with anger. "There's nothing wrong with it; it's an irrational thing. We all have our flaws —"

"Shut the hell up," Artemis hissed, and Holly's eyes widened, surprised by the venom in his voice. "You have no conception what you're really saying, do you? You just know this from speaking to Butler in Panama; I heard you from downstairs, so don't make as if you didn't."

"Artemis, calm down — "

"No, Holly! I will _not _calm down! Every single damn day of my life I have been calm and complacent! I have _had _to be perfect, don't you understand that?"

"I can't understand it unless you trust me enough to tell me, Artemis!" Holly exclaimed, leaping onto one of the two beds so that she rose above Artemis's eye level, her face screwed up with frustration. "So don't get pissed off at me, okay?" She placed a hand on either side of his head and shook it. "Gods, you are my best friend in the world but you drive me fucking insane!"

There was a ringing silence after that statement in which Holly and Artemis stared, furious, at each other as time wore on, and eventually their anger began to abide, but their pride stood in the way and refused to let them back down. They became conscious of their position at the about the same time; Holly standing up on the bed, her hands gripping Artemis's hair, his head at the level of her chest, hands instinctively resting on Holly's hips from when he had been seized by her, attempting to push her away.

Artemis's cheeks colored slightly, and Holly blew a bit of hair from her face with a sharp puff of air before she let go of him and him of her, moving to opposite sides of the room.

"Why are we fighting like this, Arty?" Holly asked, flopping down on the bed and throwing her head back into the pillows. He noted her use of his pet name, and considered himself forgiven. He flushed whatever small traces of anger he had left in his system, and slid back down the wall, once again clasping his hands in his lap. It was almost as if the argument had never occurred.

"Stress," he said finally. "Fear. Anger. They make one irritable when they're pent up without any means of escape."

"But if you could just _talk _to me —"

"Holly, I can't," Artemis said bluntly, looking up with a blaring honestly Holly was unaccustomed to seeing in his eyes. "Someday, perhaps. But I can't. Do you understand that?"

"No," Holly said, and she felt something in their gazes lock as they stared each other down; something clicked between them, and for that split second, Artemis on the floor, Holly on the bed, everything was shared in an exchange with the speed of shared electrons, almost as if they were together in the time tunnel again, but different, because although there was that moment of consciousness between them, there were still barriers. "No," Holly continued after a moment, her voice soft, but deafening in the thick silence in the room. "No, Artemis, I don't understand. But someday I will, right? Because someday there will be no more secrets. None. Do _you _understand?"

Artemis's eyes burned, and they stayed in silence for a minute, invisible energy crackling around them. "Yes."

"But _do _you, Artemis? All your life you haven't fully trusted anyone but yourself. Can you let yourself go and just trust me?"

He closed his eyes. "I think I can. Not now. But someday, I can trust you with who I am. But will you still be friends with me? I am not a good person, Holly. I am corrupted. I'm a freak. The Artemis Fowl you know is a façade."

"Really?" Holly asked, and his eyes flew back open, examining her fully. "Is the Artemis Fowl that cried himself cry to me back in Panama a façade? How about the one who sacrificed everything to run me to safety? Or the one that chose to save Minerva Paradizo from Billy Kong? Saving his father, mother, and bodyguard? Willing to forget in order to remember? Was that all a façade, Arty? Because I don't think so." She smiled, briefly spreading her hands out before dropping them back into her lap. "You show your real self more than you know. Not much. But a lot for who you are."

The conversation dissolved into silence and when Artemis next opened his eyes he was lying sideways on the floor, his face mashed into the carpet, and Juliet kneeling over him with a very annoyed expression on her changed face.

"What did I tell you about falling asleep with the glue on?" she asked in a low, angry voice. "You're going to break out in welts now; you already have a couple around the edges. More make-up to cover up those. You _have _to be more responsible about this, Artemis. You got me?"

He sat up, rubbing at his eyes and grimacing when the green contacts stuck to his eyelids, making it hard to move his eyes around. "I'm sorry," he said. "Last night was stressful. I will not forget again, you have my assurance."

Juliet rolled her eyes, reaching up with a remover solution to start taking off the faux nose. "Cut the vocab, Artemis. Scene kids are supposed to be fairly stupid, being slackers and all."

"You're so stereotypical."

"And you need to be a stereotype." Juliet peeled the skin-textured rubber off, wincing at Artemis's hiss of pain as thin slivers of skin came off with it. "Jesus, kid. You learn your lesson?"

Artemis felt the raw, stinging wounds of his face and hoped fervently they could be covered up with make-up. "Yes, I do believe so," he whispered, brushing his cold, tingling fingers over the soon-to-be scabs around his nose, which felt naked at being exposed to air. "Thank you, Juliet; I'm sure that if I had tried to do this it would not have come off so nicely."

She stood, and he followed, grimacing as various joints popped from his stiff, uncomfortable position on the floor. "We'll take your pictures tonight; I should have the fake identification within three days, and then you can enter yourself into the whole world system, or however that works. Hack away, genius. And say your goodbyes to Holly when you wake her up; you won't see her for about three weeks. I'll be in the parking lot in a black Ford F-150." Juliet slouched out of the room, tousling her chopped black hair, and Artemis stepped to Holly's side; she had landed from the lower back up in the many pillows the hotel had seen fit to offer, snoring softly, her arms eagle spread. He smiled and shook her shoulder until she blearily opened her eyes.

"Ugh. What?"

"Time to go." Artemis took the hand she thrust at him and pulled her into a sitting position, where she rubbed her eyes furiously, trying to convince her body that it really did want to wake up. "Juliet's in the parking lot waiting for you in a black Ford F-150. It should be easy enough to find."

"Gods, Artemis, what happened to your face?"

"I was irresponsible," Artemis said vaguely, wondering just how many welts the rubber nose had left. "You have to hurry, Holly. Juliet's in a bad mood this morning, and I wouldn't want you to be a casualty in a morning fury episode."

"Great, thanks," Holly yawned, sliding off the bed and padding to a bag Juliet had left the night prior, pulling her shirt off as she walked over. Artemis immediately blushed furiously and looked away as Holly rummaged through the bag in only her black bra and the blue jeans Juliet had provided from the night before, not seeming to notice Artemis's evident shock.

"Ah... Holly..."

"Hm?" She turned around, a gray shirt held limply in her hands. Artemis made it a point to angle his body away from her, keeping his head firmly turned in the opposite direction. Holly took a moment to understand and then sighed, yanking the shirt over her head and pulling it down her body. "Gods, you are such a prude. How do you think I passed Phys. Ed., by being bashful?"

"Those were female beings," Artemis said, refusing to look at her until the heat in his face had disappeared completely. "It's different."

"LEP Phys. Ed. Way different then high school. Guys and girls in the same locker room. You get used to it." Holly sighed, yanking the shirt over her head and using an elastic to tie up her hair into a quick bun. "Sexual harassment works wonders to grind down a person's modesty." Now that she was fully clothed she felt Artemis staring at her face, an odd expression on his face. "What?" she asked, thinking that she had said something wrong.

"This is the last time I'll see you as Holly," he said softly, and Holly's stomach twisted at the cautiously hidden pain in his voice, hidden behind layers and layers of lies and half-truths.

"I'll still be Holly when I come back," Holly said, wrapping him in a tight hug, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. "I'll just... look different."

Artemis swallowed, returning the embrace, his arms enclosing around Holly's shoulders. "Juliet says the whole process and the recovery should take about four weeks. I'll be worrying the whole time, I'll have you know."

"Don't. It'll be fine." Holly pulled out of the hug and tweaked his nose. "You worry too much, Mud Boy."

"Better not throw terms like that around so loosely now," Artemis reminded her. He memorized every piece and imperfection of her face; her rounded nose, the mismatched eyes, the one eyebrow that permanently seemed raised more than the other. The small, cherubic lips, the rich color of her skin under her pale pallor, the ears, carefully hidden by hair. Artemis felt himself cracking once more inside, but he refused to show it in the last time he might see Holly; they both knew, no matter what they said, that the three weeks Holly was going to be under the knife and recovering from it were going to be exceedingly dangerous, and plenty of time for Foaly to catch up and kill her.

Holly was turning away from him to head out the door when Artemis took her arm and wheeled her back to him, moving to kiss her but feeling bashful at the last minute. His lips brushed her cheek and he whispered "Be safe" before Holly, for the first time since the time-traveling fiasco years and years ago, took the lead, turning her head back to reach his, and she kissed him, closing her eyes, though Artemis kept his open to get a last look at her face.

"I will," she murmured, and gave his hand a squeeze before turning and heading out the door to the suite and into the hallway. Artemis moved, in a slight daze, to the window, where the parking lot behind the hotel could be seen quite clearly. True to her word, Juliet had parked the black Ford in the parking lot behind the hotel, and after a couple minutes of watching patiently he saw Holly drift over, inspect the unfamiliar vehicle, and hesitantly open the passenger door. Not a moment after she shut the door, sitting comfortably in the front seat, the car pulled away, leaving Artemis with a sense of loneliness he had not felt since they had picked Holly up in England.

He forced himself away from the window, knowing it was pointless to stand there all day and worry, but he had the irrational longing to do so. He slowly padded to the bathroom and winced when he turned the light on; his face was sickly pale, with huge, blistered red welts around his nose and forehead, thin, shiny red strips tracing where the very edge of the nose mold had been. He looked like some sort of diseased animal, and he grimaced at his reflection before turning on the water and washing his face, the cold water that seemed unwilling to turn warm burning the blisters and scabs. He took a bottle of the cheap complementary face wash the hotel had provided, gagging at the sickly sweet smell that covered up the chemicals. No more Aveda for him.

Artemis returned to the room, grabbing the laptop Juliet had left behind and logging in to the hotel's wireless Internet. He quickly hacked into the UN database (a feat that was easy only to Artemis, and only because he did so on a regular basis) and began constructing a new identity for himself. The hours passed, the sun rising and rising until it began to fall, but Artemis took no notice, and sat cross-legged on the bed, hunched over the computer for those hours, his mind consumed, because he would make the best damn fake identities that could possibly be created; he gave himself a drug history, and Holly a high school detention record; he forged medical documents for Butler, and a criminal record for Juliet; previous addresses, parents, contacts, passport numbers, grades, college applications, car payments; everything was accounted for when Artemis finally sat up at five in the evening, his back aching something fierce, his stomach lurching as it reminded him that he needed to eat. He was exhausted, spent by the hours of work he had put in to changing their lives. But he couldn't sleep, not when there was so much work to do...

_Why was it so quiet? There was a sense of deja vu in the air, and danger. Utter silence, compressing around him, smothering him; he couldn't even hear his own breathing, or feel his pulse as his heart pushed blood through his veins. He knew he was more alone than he had ever been; even when it was just him in the house there were the sounds of the air conditioner, his computers, the turning pages of books, the hum of lights, and perhaps the sound of Butler outside with a lawn mower or an edger. But here, now... there was nothing._

_He rose from his bed, feeling his chest move as his breathing accelerated, but unable to hear any signs, any proof, that he lived. He ran out of his bedroom, trying to call for Butler, his mother, his father, anything — anything — to prove that he was here, that they were here, that everything was fine and that there was no reason to worry. But there was nothing._

_He suddenly knew that he had had this dream before; he walked a predetermined path down the dark hallway, the lamps unlit, nothing but shadows pulling at his feet. It was recurring; he knew the interior of his home better than anyone else in the world, and his dream was accurate. The art that adorned the walls on the way to the grand staircase; Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt again... it was shocking familiarity. He reached the end of the hallway, knowing what he was going to do before he did it, and his legs carried him down the beautiful stairs, centuries old. Across the foyer and into the formal dining room, the empty, expansive table enough to sit thirty. And through that to the kitchen, where he knew he ran outside too look for the proof of his existence — but something had changed, something unexpected, and he was thrown wildly off course as his legs unexpectedly switched course, heading not for the French doors that led from the back of the house, but for the smaller, thick cherry wood doors that led down into the basement._

_The Fowl basement was small, built in the mid 1800s, and held only a few dusty trunks and old weapons, rusted from disuse. It was rare that a soul ventured down into the damp, grimy place; rather cliché as it was, but the basement was dark and prone to driving people away with the creaking of it's pipes and the foundation of the house. Artemis, however, ventured down the old flagstone stairs, turning the rusted iron knob in the wall to ignite the gas lamps; only six of the ten lit, gloomily casting long shadows in half-light. His feet stepped down the stairs — sixteen of them, all slightly slippery with damp and mildew — and stopped at the bottom, his gaze traveling around the room. Trunks, boxes, a few crates of cheap wine that had been cast away and forgotten. A mannequin, eaten threadbare by mice, two old suitcases, axes and swords laying in piles, some sheathed, some uncovered, the edges of their age-old blades still gleaming wickedly. Nothing of note. He turned to return to the light of the house — after all, what life would he find here of all places? — but was stopped by a glance of something strange in the corner of his eye._

_A door._

_How odd, he thought. The piece looked to be about twenty years old; made of oak, and stuffed into the shadows so that it could really only be seen if one stood in just the right position at the bottom of the stairs, glaring into the gloom at the undiscovered gateway. Artemis found himself gliding toward the door, reaching out a hand to it's tarnished silver knob and wrenching it open. Dust swirled around his face, and he wrinkled his nose, seeing nothing but blackness, and yet he stepped forward into the dark, not knowing where he was going but going there nonetheless._

_He walked blindly. There was water dripping from the ceiling, and he reached up a hand to touch it; concrete. There were webbed cracks, he guessed, his fingers passing over ridges as he walked and walked and walked, the heat rising until he was sweating. How much longer was this going to last? He felt the stirrings of fear in his stomach; here he was, walking into the unknown, calmly and quietly. Why hadn't he gone back up the stairs? Surely Butler was wondering where he was by now. But he had been looking for Butler in the first place; Butler, his parents, his brother, a passing paperboy, anyone._

_There was light, and Artemis blinked until the picture came into focus and he stepped back in shock and fear. _

_He had found life. Proof that he lived, that he wasn't alone. But what he saw, though simple, was enough to make him want to vomit. He stared down the gun barrel, his eyes crossing, a whimper caught in his throat as suddenly he could hear; there was the dripping of water, the whirring of a generator somewhere, the scratching of small animals and insects, his breathing, his heartbeat pounding through his brain telling him to run, but he was rooted to the spot, his eyes dragging from the gun barrel to the eyes that stared mercilessly into his; cold, empty eyes. The eyes that held his gaze as he heard the click of the trigger, heard the combustion, heard the bang, and heard his skin, his flesh, and his muscle rip. And he fell, hitting the concrete with a wet smack as his eyes stayed fixed on the icy ones above him._

"_Goodbye," Holly said, and his vision closed to black._


	10. Chapter 9

**I apologize for the delay in this chapter — I was out in the country for three days with no Internet access and no shower. This is about the end of what I had pre-written, so updates may be a little slow from now on due to... scholarly issues.  
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**CONTENT: none**

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Chapter 8: Search for the Reason Why

Artemis woke with a jolt, a soft cry emitting from his mouth as he felt his fingers contract around innocent sheets, strangling them as he gazed with wide eyes into blackness broken only by the streetlights peeking through the semi-closed curtains. He felt the familiar sheen of sticky sweat over his cold skin, felt his heart pounding wildly in his chest, felt his hair sticking up in spikes. It had been ages since he had had a dream like that; a dream that woke him in cold sweat, panic laced in his eyes, lungs aching from screaming for help, curled in Butler's strong, rocking arms. He sat there for a minute, his pulse calming, the sweat drying and making a sticky crust over his skin.

He couldn't stand to be in the bed any longer; he untangled his legs from the sheets, stumbled to the bathroom, and leaned against the counter, his head in his hands. It had originally been a recurring nightmare from when he was younger and so afraid at times of being alone that his muscles would seize in panic attacks, earning his father's disapproval and Butler's worry when he would be found in random places soaked in sweat, hyperventilating and so stiff that Butler had to push on his pressure points so that he would go limp, all the while talking softly to him. Butler was the only one who had understood at the time, and though Artemis never told him exactly what was in the nightmare that would wake him once or twice a week, he knew enough to place a monitor in his charge's room, waking him whenever Artemis would start screaming.

From the moment in the kitchen he was supposed to have carried on through the French doors leading out into the back lawn, landscaped and beautiful, but completely empty. There were no flowers, no trees, no grass. And Artemis would stand on the dirt and stare out into the white void the world turned to about twenty feet from the house before turning and running back inside, past the kitchen, past the dining room, past the foyer and bursting out into the front lawn, where again, the world faded to a void. And he would scream soundlessly, no vibrations carrying the sound in the vacuum he had been thrown into, completely alone.

And then he would wake, his screams echoing in his room, and then Butler would be there, folding Artemis into his arms, whispering softly into his ear, but Artemis could never calm down until he had heard the words "You are not alone. I'm here," repeated over and over again.

The last time he had had that dream had been when he was ten, the night after his father had disappeared. After Butler had calmed him down he had sat up, drenched with sweat and completely undignified, and yet nonetheless ordered Butler to remove the monitor from his room and never interfere with his nightly activities again.

After all, the heads of households did not need help.

But this time the dream had been drastically different. This time, he had found life and he had been killed for it. This time, Holly had been a murderer.

What did that say about what his subconscious thought about her? That she really was a murderer? Or that trusting her like he was learning to was the wrong idea?

He flipped the faucet on and jabbed his hands under the spray, ricocheting the water straight into his face. _It doesn't mean anything_, he thought angrily, wiping off his face with a scowl. _All it was was a stupid, insignificant dream._

He stripped and turned the shower on, leaving it cold so that he couldn't relax and become sleepy again; he didn't trust himself in sleep at the moment, and so he found himself throwing his vulnerable body under the icy spray, being careful to keep his newly-dyed hair out of the water, knowing that it would wash out this early in the game. He spend maybe two minutes under the water before leaping out of the shower, his skin covered in goose bumps, flinging his arms around for a clean towel, but all of the room's towels lay on the floor, soiled from make-up and hair dye. Artemis scowled, his arms wrapped around his bare chest, and searched out the cleanest looking one, hurriedly brushing the water droplets off of himself before dragged the dirty towels into one corner and the clothes into the main room, shivering as the air, somehow colder than that in the bathroom, hit his bare body. His quickly dug through one of the many bags Juliet had left behind until he was able to pull out loose jeans and a tight black long-sleeved shirt, one of the most dignified things in the bag.

He sighed, glaring out the thing strip of window he could see at the blackness turned brown by many street lamps. Why was it he could never get sufficient sleep before his body decided it was high time for him to wake up?

He grabbed the computer and pulled himself back onto the now thoroughly disheveled bed. For the next few hours he searched for apartment rentals, leaving tabs on a few inconspicuous units. Eventually he had narrowed down the search for him and Holly to ten apartments, and set up an email account for his persona, emailing the landlords with requests to hold the apartments for two days until he could confirm.

The one unit he thought looked most promising was in Harlem with one bedroom and one bathroom, the rent at a classic New York rate of $1050 a month for the small, somewhat crummy space. The unit he had his eye on was on the third floor (no elevator, unfortunately) and was hardwood like the rest of the building, which was built in 1910. Most likely the plumbing was awful and the walls were paper-thin, but if it all boiled down to blending in and protecting Holly, then Artemis was willing to transfer his pride into a garbage bin and sink to the horrible level of poverty he considered Harlem to be.

He quickly set up a bank account for one Jack Dunbar, his fake persona, and, wincing, taxed a mere $.0001 out of every bank account in America, ending up with a minuscule personal bank account of $30,405.97. He winced at the statement, lower than he had ever seen in his life, and began working on Holly's; Cher McAlmond's account was considerably larger, seeing as her character had actually finished high school; he took $.0003 from every account, winding up with a larger, though no more humbling account of $91,228.72. He sighed, flopping back onto the bed, resolving himself to a life of starvation and no furniture.

* * *

Morning came slowly, and Artemis covered up the angry, scabbing facial welts with layers and layers of make-up before attaching the fake nose, brushing on the freckles in the exact same place Juliet had the day before (where the make-up touched his real skin she had used a semi-permanent ink, made to stay in for about two or three washes, which made it easy to reapply in exactly the same places), applying a thin line of gray eyeliner, and putting in the very realistic and expensive green colored contacts. Once he had dressed as Juliet had instructed him to become accustomed to (thin black jeans and a hot pink V-neck shirt with ridiculous flat-footed clunky skater shoes) he dared to leave the hotel room, a few $5 bills stuffed in his back pocket as he walked, his arms swinging slowly, his back a bit slouched and his legs acting as if they were more lanky than they really were, to the elevators, where he leaned against the wall as he waited, tossing his hair out of his eyes. He knew he was disregarding Juliet's firm "Stay in the room" order, but he was dying for a breath of something other than dusty air conditioner and mildew, and a step outside to see if there was a nearby coffee shop couldn't hurt; besides, his stomach was knotting over itself, and if he didn't get food soon he feared he would pass out.

The elevator came; the back wall was windowed, giving a view of the plain lobby, open to the ceiling nine stories above. Artemis stared numbly at the breakfast bar, not even considering trying it, and closed his eyes as the elevator jerked downward in a slow descent. He was nervous going out alone; for the first time in a very long time, he was willingly stepping out into open terrain without knowing exactly where Butler was.

_Get a grip,_ he thought irritably, carding a hand through the hair, which still smelled a little bit of bleach. _You're nearly an adult now; act like it for God's sake._

But no matter how hard he tried he could not shake the reminder of his earlier dream, and the fact that Butler was not at his side. Despite his efforts he was stiff by the time he reached the lobby, his breathing rapid, his heart rate elevating. All he could feel was the sense that he was alone again.

The doors dinged open and Artemis stepped out into the lobby, trying to take slow, deep breaths. If he began sweating, he would ruin his make-up, and the gig would be up. He tried to calm himself, forcing his strides to be long and as loose as his rigid muscles would allow, looking straight ahead at his goal; the creaky sliding door into the noise of suburban New Jersey, right by the highway. He felt his palms grow cold with sweat and he wiped them discreetly on his pants, rapidly reciting the square roots of prime numbers in his head to calm himself; an old habit that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

The moment he passed through the cheap sliding doors that lead to corporate New Jersey, Artemis felt the weight lift of his chest and his breathing beginning to regulate as the sound of the freeway blew over him and his hair ruffled in the hot breeze. He squinted in the sunlight, waiting for his eyes to adjust and his heartbeat to slow before stepping off the curb and approaching a woman in the hotel uniform polo smoking, her eyes fixed on the highway.

"Hey," Artemis said, mentally wincing as he made his first out-of-character speech since he and Butler had robbed the Im Tal. She glanced warily at him, took a final drag from the cigarette, and tossed it on the ground, stamping on it with her heel. Had Holly been there she would have attacked the woman for littering.

"Ya need something?" she asked in her thick, obnoxious New Jersey accent.

"Yeah, um, I'm looking for, like, a Starbucks or something?" Artemis asked, tweaking his voice that that it sounded a little deeper and a little more feminine, trying his hardest not to grimace.

She looked through droopy eyelids out to the highway. "There's one if you walk about a mile up and turn left on Eleanor Avenue."

Without thanking her Artemis heaved a huge mental sigh and began his colossal walk to Starbucks. It took him nearly half an hour. By the time he had reached the blissfully cool coffee shop he was sweltering; the sun had beat down over the wasteland that bordered the highway, and Artemis knew he was going to have some very odd tan lines on his face due to the heavy molds and make-up. He leaned against the counter, blowing upward to move the sticky brown hair from his face, eyeing the menu with a critical gaze.

"Hey," the girl at the counter said. "What can I get you?"

Artemis twitched his lips in a half-smile at her enthusiasm — he'd long since noticed that coffee-joint employees seemed to have injected caffeine into their systems — and did his best to politely address her.

"Could I get a Venti Cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso?"

"Sure thing. Anything else for you?"

He snatched a fruit cup from the refrigerated compartment. "That'll be it."

"Cool, it'll be right out for you, sir. That'll be a total of $4.69."

Artemis slipped her a five out of his jeans, dumping the spare coins into the tip jar (she beamed at him, though it was only $0.31) and took his fruit to one of the tables, sitting down in an brown armchair that was far too squishy and popping the lid off of the container. He stabbed an apple slice with his fork and ate it cautiously; he had trained himself to taste insecticides and food poison, but it seemed harmless, albeit much more tasteless and mealy than what came out of the Fowl orchards. Artemis's brow furrowed as he realized that there would be no more fruits or vegetables fresh out of the garden; a small thing, though a nice touch to daily life, and one he had had all of his existence. He sighed, chewing on a grape, and stood to get his coffee as the order was hollered out into the small crowd of waiting people.

After finishing his breakfast Artemis began to walk back to the hotel, his mind dwelling on memories and his past life. There were things he had taken for granted his entire life and now that they were gone he realized he missed them; sitting on the lush, perfect grass of the lawn, laughing while Beckett and Myles wrestled like children should, the soft sigh of the ancient elms at night when he was the only one awake, the moon glinting off of the pond, which he had made his own little place of, at four in the morning, the smell of Butler cooking red potatoes that drew him out of his study and down the stairs. He inwardly scowled as he grinned brilliantly to the desk attendants in the hotel; they looked at him a little funny, but it was to be expected. People often looked at him oddly.

Knowing full-well that it had been stupid to go out in broad daylight without identification, Artemis punched the button to call the elevator, sighing like a horse, his lips flapping over his teeth. Despite the desperateness of the situation and his near-breakdown not two hours previous, Artemis wasn't particularly worried at the moment.

_I really should analyze myself for bipolar,_ he thought satirically as the elevator doors dinged open. _This is getting ridiculous._

The ride up was short, and when he stepped onto the landing he immediately noticed a hunched Goth girl sitting by the door to the suite. It took Artemis to remember that it was really Juliet, and she was glaring viciously at him from fifty feet away.

Artemis unlocked the door without a word and Juliet stalked inside, her Nine Inch Nails book bag hitting the back of her knees every time she took a furious step. Artemis sighed through his nose, closing the door, and Juliet whipped around to glower at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she hissed. "I told you not to leave the room, didn't I?"

"Yes, Juliet," Artemis said slowly, "But I had to get out of here, you must understand —"

"I must understand nothing, Artemis," she snapped. "Butler and I have our necks on the line, and here you are parading off without even an ID. You know just how dangerous that is! You can't be this flippant about your decision to take Holly into hiding; another things like this and it could all be over. Do you get that?"

Artemis stared at her coolly. "I had the dream again," he said after a minute. "I'm sure Butler has told you about those? He would have needed to tell somebody — certainly not my parents — and you _are _his little sister. Did he tell you what would happen, and how I would scream?"

Juliet blanched.

"I needed to get out of this room, Juliet. I needed proof that I existed. That's all. A walk to Starbucks down the highway; nothing illegal or suspicious about it. Right now, things are too much like what my life was before my father went missing. Too alone, too empty. Do you understand?"

"Artemis," Juliet said, her voice low and husky; already she was falling into her role.

"It's won't happen again."

She sighed, nodded, and dumped her bag on the floor, pulling out a driver's license, passport, and a birth certificate. She dug around for a moment more and came up with a third generation iPod and dark gray cell phone — a Samsung Alias, Artemis recognized — both was appropriately scuffed and worn.

"Jack Dunbar," Juliet said as Artemis took his identification. "You're 21, you don't have a car, and from what I can tell from your 'records' I found that you made, you lived in South Carolina until you were 5. Right?"

"Right." He looked down at the picture Juliet had taken in the bathroom and the man he was supposed to be. "You came faster than I thought."

"Haven't slept since I left here," she grunted, slumping over the the couch. "I'm going to head back over to my hotel; you should check out, okay? Meet your contact in New York and get to your new place. I'm assuming you have one already?"

"I'll contact the landlord and get back to you with the address."

"No need; it'll be in the database in a couple days." Juliet sighed, and through she had just sat down, she hauled herself off of the couch and lazily saluted Artemis as she began to walk towards the door; she paused, her hand on the handle. "Just out of curiosity, where is this apartment?"

"Harlem."

Juliet smirked, wrenching the door open. "I don't have a problem with that, but don't tell Dom." She dug in her pocket and threw Artemis an unlabeled tube. "For the scabs on your nose," she said simply, and closed the door behind her. Artemis stared after her, his mind reeling, and then gathered his few things as well as the bag with the computer and his spare clothes and make-up, and left the room for good. He checked out, throwing the $300 owed dollars to the bored receptionist, and hailed a cab waiting at the outside of the hotel.

"Manhattan," he said simply. "You get the address once we get there."

The cabbie rolled his eyes, flicked his cigarette out the window, and turned the radio up. Sexualized rap pounded through the car, and Artemis scowled as he dialed the number of the landlord, which he had memorized the night previous. A static coated, accented voice answered.

"Allo?"

"Hello, this is Jack Dunbar. Last night I asked that you hold your available apartment. Is it still good?"

There was a rush of crackling on the line, and Artemis winced as a high keening came from the speaker before the landlord spoke again. "Ches... Ches... Meester Doonbar. Teh firsht payment ish due ven choo arive. Choo call me. I get choo key? Okay?"

"Fine, thanks," Artemis said, snapping the phone shut with a sigh before the call could drop. Leave it to Juliet to set him up with the worst service the world had to offer. The Verizon network sucked.

One the cab arrived in Manhattan, which Artemis hadn't seen since he was eight, he directed him into Harlem and found the address of the apartment building; it was, as he had suspected, a brownstone, as was characteristic to New York, and the moment he had gotten out of the car, paying the wallet-emptying fee of $187 to the cabbie, he called his landlord again.

"Allo?"

"This is Jack Dunbar."

"Oh, allo, Meester Doonbar, come to number tree on floor vun. I give choo key. See choo soon, okay, bye."

Artemis pulled a face as the landlord hung up on him, but dutifully made his way to number three, trying very hard not to shudder at the bubbling white wallpaper on the hallway walls and the mouse-eaten corporate carpet on the floor. He knocked on the door between two and four — the brass 3 seemed to have either been stolen or fallen off and replaced with red spray paint — and a short Indian man answered, chattering away on his beat up cell phone in rapid Hindi even Artemis had trouble keeping up with. The simply stared at each other for a moment as he gabbed away, their eyes locking. Artemis ended up raising an eyebrow with an icy glare to accompany it — a look that was very much watered down the big nose and green eyes — but the man cut the conversation short by closing the phone without so much as a good bye.

"Can I help choo?"

"I need my key," Artemis said coolly, hefting the bags on his shoulders.

"Oh, okay, okay, choo Jack Doonbar?" He didn't even wait for Artemis to nod, and reached into his pocket to pull out a grimy key. He handed it to Artemis — who, despite being shorter than most men his age, was a head taller than him — and Artemis took it with the very tips of his long fingers.

"Eet is number tvelve. On teh tird floor. Choo go up stairs over der and go up to chour new home. Teh old people who leeved der left deh refrigerator and the dishvasher. Choo have money?"

"I'll get it to you in an hour or so," Artemis called over his shoulder as he strode down the hallway to the stairwell.

"Okay, bye-bye Meester Doonbar, get money to me soon," he replied, reopening his phone. "Oh, and my name is Salim, Meester Doonbar, see choo soon."

"Fabulous," Artemis muttered to himself, pushing the door to the stairs open. They were badly lit, and made of concrete with a gritty tape surface over them. He climbed up the three flights in the yellowy-green light from the flickering lamp, side-stepping a sleeping homeless man, and reached the landing just a little short of breath. He felt a little proud of himself, he had to admit; four months ago he would have been panting. He owed his slightly labored breathing to the bags on his shoulders that were growing increasingly heavy. He pushed through the door that left the stairwell and hauled himself down the hallway, which seemed to be more open and friendly than the bottom landing, which seemed to have been a basement, through he didn't remember going down any stairs. This hallway had been painted a robin egg blue, and through the wallpaper bubbling could be seen through the paint in some places, the overall effect was much nicer than below. He wondered vaguely who the neighbors were — for there was no doubt that they had done the job — and unlocked the door, noticing that the number 12 was not brass but steel, and in very modern type. He wrenched it open — a little sticky, he thought — and flicked on a light switch by the door.

What he got was a huge shock to his system.

It could only be described as an explosion of color. Graffiti-style art took up the entire wall facing him, leading him into an unknown room. There were deformed, cartooned faces peering at him, and checkered, plaid, striped, and every other pattern in the world leaping out of every little available space, rainbows and eyes and words and cartoony breasts peeking out and jumping into his face, and every color the mind could come up with plastered to the wall. The effect was a tad bit overwhelming, and through it was very much _not _Artemis's taste in art, he stood in the doorway, his mouth slightly agape, marveling at the time and dedication someone had had to make this insane mural. He let it wash over him for a moment before stepping into the apartment, closing the door behind him. Artemis spared the wall a wary glance before letting it lead him into the kitchen, which he was very surprised and relieved to realize that the walls were simply painted a safe pale yellow against the dark cabinets and old, gorgeous wood floors. The wall facing the living room over the counter and the stove was cut out to reveal more a clear blue that matched the hallway outside. Artemis smirked as he put the bags down in the kitchen, knowing full well who had painted outside.

The other side of the wall that had let him in curved around to let him through to the living room; an odd choice, Artemis thought to himself, but not an unpleasant one. It seemed big and empty without furniture, with large, old fashioned windows and a modern door made entirely of glass save the steel handle leading out onto the remodeled balcony.

He turned away from the windows only to be met by another mural; a black and white painted woman in knickers, suspenders, and wife beater seemed to be peeling the top of her head off. He raised an eyebrow — for it _was _a bit odd — and went through a dark black painted door into the brightest bathroom he had ever seen in his life. It was fire-truck red and obviously remodeled. There was an antique claw-foot bathtub and a glass-brick wall that concealed whoever would be showering on the other side, along with yet another mural; a scratched woman holding a small suitcase, naked save for the black underwear she was wearing, her feet concealed by ripples of something and her head scratched out by scribbling black lines, the loops made by these shaded in by red and the clear blue.

Apparently, the previous tenants had liked modern art.

He sighed, and stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. The wall facing the door was painted black with an abstract tree in white curling up from the dark floor, and the other walls painted an electric green and overlooking the streets of Harlem. Artemis breathed a small laugh, and left the room to make his way to the kitchen, grabbed his key and new IDs, locking the door to the apartment and running down the stairs and out into the streets of Harlem.

He asked around until he found an ATM, and rewired it to pull the due $1050 out in order to give the landlord his cash. The machine whined as it grudgingly spat out 52 $20 bills and one $10, and the moment it stopped Artemis scooped up the money and walked away calmly as if hadn't just done something hugely illegal.

He gave Salim the money and headed back up to the apartment, pulling out his computer and, grimacing, ordered furniture, and textiles from IKEA, draining around $2700 from his account, an amount he would have viewed as shamefully low for the price of a single _bed _had he still lived at the manor. He sighed, sending his order to the store, and stood, gazing from the kitchen through the living room and out the windows, resolving himself to sleeping on the floor for a few days and eating nothing but fresh fruit and raw vegetables until he could get Holly to teach him how to cook. He had four weeks to kill; four long, lonely weeks in which he would do his best to be just antisocial enough to not attract attention, feel very healthy due to his raw-food consumption, and learn to navigate the New York subway system.

And he would have to get a job.

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**The inspiration art can be found at the following art if you add before each link. The link to the graffiti art was, unfortunately, lost.  
**

**.com/art/peel-back-113255064**

**.com/art/a-tragedy-occurred-118672668**

**There is a poll on my profile for the next full Artemis Fowl fic I will do once Half the Perfect World is finished. Titles only. Please vote.**


	11. Chapter 10

**There was trouble with the links posted for the art last chapter. You can type in r e s t a r t a u g u s t . d e v i a n t a r t (no spaces) and then tack on the end of the links that were left in the last chapter. I apologize for the inconvenience.**

**CONTENT: Language, mild sexual content, mild drug referencing

* * *

**

Chapter Nine: Tired of Waiting for You

Artemis slumped over his legs, his elbows resting on his knees as the tracks rhythmically rocked the people on the subway; women in coats read books, men sat with their computers on their laps, teenagers leaned against the door, texting or listening to music players, staring, bored, into the darkness. It was silent except for the clacking of the coach; even in New York, people seemed to mind their own business. He sighed through his nose, and turned to watching his hands, dangling between his knees.

The subway came to a stop and the doors opened to a pneumatic hiss, letting in a wave of sound that came from the busy platform, and people began to slide on to the train, their voices and faces shutting down as they stepped inside. It was a very odd effect, Artemis thought, pushing thoughts of a psychological study from his mind. It was like there was a sort of mechanism that turned humans into living robots the moment they passed under the hood of the sliding door.

The doors began to hiss shut again, and a tall, skinny girl shoved her thin frame through the slit before they successfully closed. She hung on to a pole, bent over for a moment as the train began to move, and when she has regained her balance she stood, her face retaining its animation and life as she looked around the still, silent coach. In comparison to her outrageous outfit—a violently violet velvet fedora over hot pink hair paired with a black wool military coat, out from which peeked hanging tweed suspenders, neon orange leggings covered from the knees down by black-and-white striped leg warmers, out from which protruded white ankle boots—the people on the train looked dull and dead, as if there were nothing about them that wasn't average. Her eyes, pure black from the edge of the iris to the pupil, locked with Artemis's, and she shoved her way obnoxiously through the black crowd of people, throwing herself into the empty seat next to him that no one else seemed to want to fill.

"Hey," she said, pulling her boots onto the seat and balancing on them, propping her chin up on her knees. "You seem to be one of the few people in New York who was withstand the hypnotic power of the subway."

Artemis smirked. Yet another person trying to start a conversation with him. The funny thing was that when he had been Artemis Fowl, people had quailed just looking at him. But now that he was Jack Dunbar, he had suddenly had hordes of people trying to talk with him. It was interesting indeed. "I'm new."

"Yeah, I can tell. How long you been here?"

He cringed at the grammar usage, but forced a smile and lied through his teeth. "About a week."

"You here with your mom or something?"

"No, I'm alone."

She grinned broadly, her voice rudely loud in the quiet space; people were glaring at her for disrupting the sleepy peace of the compartment. "New York is notorious for letting minors buy their own apartment, after all."

He felt his face color, and he lied again. "I'm 21."

She blinked in surprise and burst out laughing, drawing annoyed stares from the other commuters. "Are you serious? You're so short!" She giggled, holding a hand to her ill-concealed smile, her black eyes sparking mischievously. "I'm sorry. One should never assume in a place like this, huh?"

Artemis smiled tightly.

"You want some company? My brother Gray and I are having a party tomorrow night at our place. You could come if you want."

Yeah, right. Social networking was _not_ what he needed right now. "No, thanks. My girlfriend is coming in soon and I want to make sure she's given a warm welcome." Girlfriend in the loosest sense of the word, of course, but this girl didn't need to know that. Why was he even talking to her?

She chewed a tip of her shocking pink hair thoughtfully. "I get it, I get it. Tough guy to get a hold on, yeah? Not too social?"

How did she know that? "Sometimes," he said, trying to close the conversation. She persisted. _Damn it_, he thought.

"Is she cute?"

"Yes, I think so," he said, scowling.

"Gloomy, bud? Subway warp getting to you?"

"No."

"Ah. You're telling me to back the hell off, aren't you?"

He sighed, biting his lip in order to keep his tongue in check. Honestly, some people just didn't understand that they were really and truly annoying to the people that surrounded them. "In a polite way," he said tightly.

She puffed out her cheeks and looked away, plunging the subway back into silence once more. "I'm Honor," she said after a minute. "I'm sorry if I was talking your ear off. ADHD, you know. Can't afford my meds right now."

Artemis raised his head, eying her warily. The black of her irises were cheap colored contacts; he could see a thin film of pale blue peering around the edges. Lying again. He never thought he would tire of it, but... "It's all right," he said, shaking back his slightly damp hair; he had touched up the roots that day. "I'm clinically depressive, and my meds are pretty expensive as well."

Honor smiled. "Cool. I love meeting other screw-ups. What's your name, stranger man?"

"Jack. Jack Dunbar."

"And your girl?"

"Cher McAlmond. She's nineteen."

"Cute," Honor said as the coach pulled in to 96th street station, and she reached up to the bar above the seats, hauling herself up to a clumsy standing position. "This is my stop. It was nice meeting you, Jack Dunbar."

"This is where I get off too," Artemis said, rising, at least a head and half shorter than her. "I'm headed to the Magnolia Cafe to do a job interview."

Honor stared at him, and then slowly her mouth stretched so far that he couldn't quite tell if she was smiling or frowning. "Well, that's serenity for you," she said, tipping her hat the the old woman scowling at her as she stepped up to the door as the train approached the platform. "I work there. I can put in a good word for you if you'd like."

He blinked and the doors slid open; Honor leapt onto the platform and he followed a bit more slowly, letting his legs carry him over long distances. He felt extremely under-dressed in Honor's presence, even though he was wearing more color than he ever could have dreamed he would wear; red jeans and a black-and-white striped shirt with yellow low-top Converse. Honor flashed him a smile as he stepped up the support column she was leaning on. He sighed slightly; he supposed that if there was a chance they were going to work together that he might as well be polite.

Artemis had lied when he had said that he had been in New York for a week; it had been five long weeks since he had first set foot in the apartment and began his life in New York City as Jack Dunbar. It had taken a week for the furniture to arrive, and he had spent two days with the help of his lesbian neighbors getting the furniture together. They had been big on hugging him, and by the end of the first day when he had lay down on the new bed, Artemis had felt thoroughly violated and very hungry. He had sat on the floor of the kitchen, the new chairs and table not out of the boxes yet, and ate a very lavish dinner of bananas and wheat bread, and thought about Holly. She should have, at that time, been well on her way to recovery from the plastic surgery, but he was going insane being alone in the apartment.

Juliet hadn't made contact with him at all, and though he knew it was the smart thing to do, it was driving him crazy..

He passed the rest of the time learning how to be a New Yorker; navigating the subway, testing the limits of the policemen, finding those the rare places where he could shop for cheap and still find decent quality stuff. It was late October when he found that he was utterly surprised to see people buying Halloween costumes and the other tenants of the building decorating the walls outside their doors. His lesbian neighbors, Kat and Eloise, hung up fake cobwebs all down the ceiling of the hallway, and had laughed their heads off when Artemis had walked straight out of the door and into a mass of cobwebs that hadn't been fixed hanging across his doorway. He had forced a smile on his face while they apologized, assuring him that they had meant to move it, only to come back to the building to find that they had strung it taut across the door in his absence. Mysteriously, they weren't home when he knocked on their door, and was forced to carefully tear the cotton from his door himself.

He had been job hunting for a little over a week, but even for a computer genius like Artemis Fowl it was very difficult to find a decent job in New York. He had ended up finding a rare opening for a waiter at the Magnolia Cafe — a hugely popular restaurant in New York — and had shot the manager an email with his request. The man had seemed miffed that he had no resumé of any kind and that he hadn't even graduated high school but agreed to let Artemis apply for a job. And here he was, walking alongside one of the waitresses, on his way to the interview. Priceless.

The Magnolia Cafe was located a few streets north from Central Park, and Honor and Artemis walked in silence until they reached the front of a large restaurant, the facade entirely of thick glass. "I'll take you around back," Honor murmured. "Just pretend we've been friends for a while."

She lead him through a damp alleyway until they reached a door with a bright pink flamingo painted on it; the brightness was in high contrast to the gloom of the alley. The city sounds echoed down the concrete walls as she pulled key out of her pocket and jammed it in the lock, but it refused to move. Honor groaned in frustration and kicked the door, turning to Artemis while she waited for someone to come to her aid.

"Damn, boy," she said, looking him over. "I know winter's coming on a little late this year, but aren't you cold?"

Artemis smirked. "At least I'm wearing pants."

Honor looked down and yelped, reaching under her coat to pull down the lime green smock that had ridden up, leaving her thighs bare. It dropped nearly to her knees once she had fixed it. She shot him a glare and said, "The tights retain heat. Don't you have a coat?"

"No."

She grinned as the door was shoved open to reveal a tired-looking man in an apron. "We are buying you a coat after we get off of work."

"Um, no, that's okay —"

"Honor, hurry your ass inside," the man in the doorway. "It's cold as hell in here."

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she said, banging a boot down on the bottom of the door-frame. "Come on, Jack. Time to interview with Charlie."

"What is he going to ask me?"

"He's just going to look at you and watch you as he has you interact with the restaurant staff," she said, smiling gently. "We're _really good friends_, okay?"

"Fine." He stepped through the door after her and was hit by a wall of warm air that smelled of freshly baked pastries. Obscure rock music pounded out of the speakers as Honor led him through the kitchen, mostly populated by young adults at the grill or counters. Artemis couldn't hear Honor talking to him over the music, clattering, and shouts of "Order up!"

She pulled him into a supply closet. "Look," she shouted so that he could hear. "There are pretty much thousands of people wanting this job right now, so I'll put in a good word for you with Charlie because it sucks when we get a new waiter who's an asshole. He'll try to intimidate you, but don't let him. He's really a nice person. Just interact with us and try to learn the system. It will look very good for you." She pushed him out the door and brought him back through the kitchen and into the main restaurant, where waiters zipped smoothly between tables clad in casual, personal attire. It was a large restaurant, and packed full with a waiting line.

"We're wildly popular," Honor muttered, pulling him up to a tall, very thin man hunched over the hostess, who was biting her lip over reservations. The uncertain couple stood in front of them, growing increasingly fidgety.

"Look," Charlie finally said over the waitress's nervous babbling. His voice was sharp and British, and although Artemis was Irish, he felt a connection through the similar accents and relaxed slightly, not even realizing he was tense to the breaking point. "I don't bloody care what your excuses are, Mimi, but there was supposed to be a reservation card on that table in the corner — yes, by the windows, love, right over there — and whoever was supposed to do it didn't." He looked up wearily at the couple. "I'm sorry, mates, but you're not getting the table you wanted. We'll seat you at the next available table."

"But —!" The man of the couple protested, but Charlie had already turned away, muttering something about "the ruddy Yank spouting his fancy man jibber jabber."

"You're early," he grumbled to Honor as he made to pass by.

"Better early than late," Honor replied smoothly. "I have an interviewee here. Friend of mine, Jack Dunbar."

Charlie turned around, raising an eyebrow as he critically looked Artemis over. "Cor, lad, I think you need brighter trainers," he said, nodding to his yellow shoes. "You don't look too dodgy. You shot me an email, yeah?"

"Yes," Artemis replied, smiling slightly.

"No resume, didn't damn well graduate. Not looking good so far, bloke." He looked at Honor, nodding at her to head back into the kitchen. "We'll talk later, love. Head on back, now." Honor shot Artemis one last look and headed back into the kitchen, taking off the fedora and coat. Charlie turned his attention back to Artemis, who was fighting the urge to set his vocabulary loose on the lanky man before him.

"Now," Charlie said, leading Artemis back into the hallway that lead to the bathrooms. "I don't want no jiggery pokery here. How long have you really known Honor?"

"About three years."

"Yeah? Half of me says that's a load of posh. How come she's never mentioned you before, dropout?"

"We're not especially close or anything. We met when she pulled me out of getting mugged," he lied quickly. "Been sorta friends ever since."

"Really."

"Really."

Charlie scrutinized him, sticking out his lower lip. "What's her brother's name?"

Artemis paused momentarily, running his mind through the conversation. _My brother Gray and I are having a party tomorrow night at our place. _"Gray," he said, mentally breathing out a sigh of relief. "Never met the guy, though. She doesn't talk about him much."

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "Right cheeky little lad, aren't you? I like that. Lucky for you actually know Honor, otherwise you'd be a poor sod with my boot connecting to your bum as I kicked you out into the alley." He moved a strand of dirty blond hair from his forehead, his fingers brushing over his stubble on the way back down. "Alright. Go find Kate. She'll talk to you when you tell her you're an interviewee." Artemis didn't move, looking up at Charlie. "Well, Bob's your uncle, boy! Get a move on! You can't be a waiter if you're this slow!"

"What does Kate do and where will I find her?"

"She's a cleaner in the kitchens. Her shift starts in five. Make it quick."

Artemis quickly found Kate and, bored out of her mind, she began to briefly explain the way things were run. "You gotta just go with the flow," she said. "As long as you seem to interact with people who will leave you tip money if you're a good waiter and if you're cool the staff, you should be good. Charlie's a good guy. He'll recognize potential when he sees it."

Apparently, that was the only advice he was going to get, and so Artemis sat off to make a good impression with no idea what to do. He stood off to the side in the kitchen for a while, observing the way things got done, and how people spoke to each other, and the apparent crude terminology that came with working behind the scenes at a restaurant. The cooks flipped pancakes and hamburgers, tossed salads, chopped vegetables at an alarmingly fast rate, pulled muffins and brownies out of the oven, and skillfully arranged meals on brushed steel plates before sliding them down the counter with a yell of "Order up!"

The business and the suppressed stress behind the swinging doors of the kitchen made Artemis wonder why he been disgustingly mean to every waiter, waitress, and manager he had ever come in contact with.

He noticed the one young woman hurriedly scrubbing dishes, her hands red and raw, her face sweaty and a bit panicked. Artemis had barely reached the conclusion that she might need help when his legs were carrying him across the kitchen, dodging waiters and cleaners and cooks to get the woman, who now had a plate in her hands that seemed to be refusing to relinquish its hold on the melted cheese welded to its surface. She looked close to tears when Artemis tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to drop the plate into the sink full of suds that was serving as her washing station.

"I'm going as fast as I can, sir, I'm sorry —"

"I'm not your boss," Artemis said over her. "Do you need help with that?"

She looked at him as if he were the best thing that had walked over the surface of the Earth and thrust a plate into his hands. "Our dish-washing machine is out; they're sending a repairman at five, but I've never realized just how many dishes we go through a day; it's utterly insane how many plates I've had to rewash trying to stack them all and knocking over the whole stack—"

"Not another word," Artemis interrupted, having watched her hands washing a plate strangely shaped like a fish and deducing what exactly to do, seeing as he had never washed a plate in his life. It seemed simple enough; dunk the object of wash into the soapy basin that was constantly draining and refilling at the same time, scrub with a rough sponge, rinse in continually running faucet, don't bother drying, place on the top of the precariously tall stack of dishes. He set to work with the young woman, cleaning plates, bowls, silverware, glasses and occasionally another fish plate would comet through.

"They're for bagels and lox," she said after she noticed Artemis looking oddly down at the plate. "I'm not sure why they only do the fish-shaped plates for that — must be a really old inside joke — but they refuse to have bagels and lox served without the fish plate."

And so the washing continued as the stack of dishes to be cleaned dwindled, or at least remained constant instead of growing. Artemis and the young woman engaged in fragmented chatting. Her name was Alexandra, and she had only started working at the Magnolia Cafe a few weeks prior. Every time the conversation veered toward him, Artemis turned it away and asked a question.

He didn't fail to notice Charlie watching him from the corner of the kitchen.

* * *

That night Artemis lay in bed and stared at a crack in the ceiling he had rather taken a liking to. It threaded across the artificial sky, traveling in roughly a straight line, but jumping erratically around that imaginary guide that it followed. There really was nothing special about it. It was just a there; a presence that somehow guided Artemis through the night when insomnia took hold with its cold, aching grip.

He turned over, his gaze instead traveling out the old, fogged window and across the street to the adjacent building. He stared, a bit blankly, into the night, his mind wandering vaguely as it had taken to after weeks of loneliness. Despite being in the city that never slept, Artemis's brain felt sluggish and tired, as if lack of contact with the three people left in the world who he could trust were siphoning intelligence from his brain. Things were moving around him in slow motion, despite the speed of the traffic, the business of the world around him, and the shopping excursion Honor had dragged him on that afternoon, the first real communication he had had since he had arrived in New York. She had pulled him into a consignment store and forced him to buy a black winter coat despite his protests that he didn't want to spend the money.

To tell the truth, Artemis knew he had added more to the accounts than he should of when he had first constructed them, and had quickly siphoned off the $30,000 he needed to pay Lourdes, bringing down the monetary value of their combined accounts to about $85,000. That money was to be shared between the two of them, and stretched for survival in the most expensive city in America.

Artemis had never been this poor in his life.

He closed his eyes, blowing a sharp gust of air through his lips to move a piece of hair off of his face. He had been lucky thus far, and he knew it; surviving the explosion and landing in Colon had been a miracle, and making it into the States with no problems had been nearly as incredible. He had found a good apartment, he had enough money to at least survive for the time being, and he had happened across the one person who could help him land the job that every New York slacker wanted.

His head sank into the pillow, and he felt the bags under his eyes that he had carefully hidden with make-up weigh his face down. It would be such a burden to open his eyes, but though he was tired, sleep evaded him.

A sharp ringing echoed throughout the room, and his eyes snapped open. A muted light was coming from the floor. He sat up, a bit confused until he remembered his cell phone, silent for over a month, sitting in the pocket of the pants he had worn that day. He untangled his legs from the sheets and stumbled to his clothes, cast carelessly on the floor in his haste to reach the bed and sink into an unlikely oblivion, digging through the pile until he found the hard square of the phone.

"Hello?"

"She's coming tomorrow," a husky voice said on the other end of the line, and Artemis recognized it as Juliet's alias's voice. "She's got blond wavy hair and has a thin nose and big brown eyes. Pouty lips. Wearing short plaid shorts and a tank top. Take her clothes shopping right away. She'll be at your workplace tomorrow at around four."

"How did you —?"

"Goodnight, Jack." The line went dead, and Artemis found himself staring at the blinding white screen. Holly was coming tomorrow. An unrecognizable, totally new Holly. Despite the stress weighing down his shoulders, Artemis felt his lips pull into a half-smile, and he dropped the phone back into the pile of clothing before flinging himself back on the bed, lying eagle-spread and realizing that when he took Holly shopping he would have to buy pajamas, seeing as he had been resistant to buy any excess items of dress because of the tight budget. Even though she had trusted him enough to accept his wish to kiss her, he doubted she would be enthusiastic about sleeping in the same bed as Artemis, let alone lay next to him in his boxers only.

He could always sleep on the couch if he absolutely had to.

He thought back to the kiss. Artemis had never understood the human sexual urge before he had really kissed Holly in the car, feeling the emotional connection and the unparalleled closeness of the moment. He believed it to be his first real kiss, seeing as he didn't count the one back in time due to Holly's hormonal high at the time. It had lit a sort of fire in the lower regions of his stomach, fueling a desire in him to take Holly as his own. It embarrassed him; the thoughts of kissing Holly, some more racy than others, seemed rather teenage and ridiculous, but it was impossible to eradicate the thoughts. They persisted, sometimes consuming him, sometimes dancing on the edge of his mind in an infuriating tango.

He couldn't help wanting to be around Holly, wanting to laugh and speak and just be with her, though, if he thought about it, he knew it went deeper. It was a connection neither of them had acknowledged verbally. He knew it existed, and he suspected that she did too, but it was such an awkward, difficult speed bump in the relationship that it simply lay between them, taunting.

If he was blunt about it, the only thing to say was that he _wanted _her.

It wasn't as if she was perfect — as the cliché went, nobody was — but she was wonderful in his eyes. She didn't try too hard to be anybody but who she was. By no means was she stunningly gorgeous. He didn't know exactly what he would see tomorrow, but he knew that the real Holly's face was a little asymmetrical, her nose a bit hooked on the end, one eyebrow more cocked than the other, and her hair impossible to manage at times, but she _was _pretty, in a dangerous sort of way. And of course she had her character flaws just as he did; her temper, for starters, and her inability to sit still and deal with boring situations. She was demanding, she was impatient at times, and she refused to take anything as less than it could be. No, Holly wasn't perfect, but she was his better half. He knew that for a fact.

Morning came in a blinding flash of sunlight and a ring from the cell phone on the floor. Artemis, forgetting that he had given Charlie the number, had answered through a haze of sleep and ended up jumping into the same pair of pants he had worn the previous day, pulling on an obscure band T-shirt and throwing the new jacket over his ensemble, tousling his hair instead of brushing it and running to the bathroom to quickly apply his make-up and molds.

"Be here in fifteen minutes," Artemis quoted grumpily as he brushed the glue perfectly over his real nose, getting ready to adhere the fake one over it. "Damn it."

He made it to the Magnolia Cafe twenty minutes after he had crawled out of bed, panting and clutching a counter for support. Charlie walked past, sparing him a glance before rummaging through a pile of mail on the adjacent counter. "You're late, Dunbar."

"With all due respect, sir, you called me at six in the morning expecting me to make myself presentable and cross town in fifteen minutes," Artemis replied, shrugging out of his coat. "I think twenty minutes is pretty damn impressive."

Charlie turned around, raising an eyebrow. "Do you, now, Yankee?"

"I do."

Charlie eyed him, and then grinned. "Good. Then I've decided, finally. You've got yourself a job, Jack. Talk to Honor when she comes in at eleven. She'll train you. Until then, you may roam all over the city because otherwise you'll be right smack in the way of everyone else. Now move your bum, boy. I have work to do."

Artemis, who was holding his coat in his hands, shrugged it back on, nodding to Charlie and heading out the back door and into the alley again, wondering what he was going to do for five straight hours. He let his feet mindlessly carry him, and before long he found himself jaywalking into Central Park. The trees were losing the last of their leaves, giving way to a winter that had yet to show its cold face; it was mid-November and it had yet to snow, which was unheard of in New York, given the constant rain. He walked down a small hill across the grass, dying from the chill the nighttime left behind, and onto the concrete trail through the park. There were so many people, even at 6:30 in the morning; young couples, old couples, families, runners, the homeless, performers, and him. Just him, just Artemis, just Jack. Strolling aimlessly through Central Park waiting for the day to pass so that he wouldn't be alone anymore.

He ended up taking the subway to the library he had spent many a lonely afternoon in. The public library on East 96th street was by no means large, but it was less crowded than the most popular libraries around Manhattan, and Artemis really couldn't find it in himself to cross over to the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Queens branches. The smell of the place faintly reminded him of home. Perhaps it had something to do with the burning smell of chill from the air conditioner, a tribute to how cold he liked his own library, or the scent of old encyclopedias, taking up an entire wall of the reference section. Whatever the case, Artemis visited the place at least twice a week, and could spend hours just people-watching when he remembered that his character was not particularly studious.

Artemis settled down in the reference section, picking up a photography study and flipping mindlessly through it, his eyes passing almost bored over landscapes, nudes, and distortions. In all of his art preferences, he had found photography to be his least favorite, preferring the gentle sweep of paint or pen. There was a bit of dark amusement in his reasoning; he found photography to be cold and unwelcoming, capturing something that did not want to be captured and trapping it there, never letting it fly free of the canvas and laying it out for the world to crudely examine. Call him a hypocrite, but those were his feelings, and he had never attended the photography shows he had been invited to.

"Hey, Jack."

He looked up quickly, and his eyes snapped to the absurdly dressed woman standing in front of him, cautiously holding a book behind her. "Hello, Honor," he said, his pupils dilating slightly at the sight of her; she was clad in a wool poodle skirt and ruffly green top that clashed horribly with her black-and-white striped tights and aged combat boots.

"Did Charlie spring a surprise on you yet? I meant to warn you yesterday, but I kind of forgot..."

"At six this morning," Artemis replied, glad to have an excuse to close the photography book. He leaned back and stuffed it back in a random shelf, thinking of how much it didn't deserve a place.

"Typical," Honor replied, shifting her weight to the other foot. "You got off lucky, though. Charlie called me at four in the morning when I was applying. It sucked." She sighed dramatically with a heave of her shoulders. "So. Are you studying under me, Mr. Dunbar?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. I'm going in early today. We have about an hour until my shift starts, so I'm going to check out a book and we can motor over there."

Artemis nodded vaguely and stood, grabbing his bag. He couldn't have been in the library for four hours, could he have? It seemed that time had been able to pass very quickly in small segments ever since he had come to New York; he suspected he had spent most of those four hours staring at nothing. One of the symptoms of depression, he knew, but he didn't feel depressed at the moment. Sighing softly, he stood and walked to the front of the library, waiting for Honor to finish checking out before wandering over to her, ignoring her hasty shoving of the book into her messenger bag.

It had started to snow as it often did in New York during the winter; a wet snow, not long enough to make weeds grow, but just long enough to make it humid so that the entire city smelled like the sewers. Artemis and Honor crossed the city in silence, slipping into the Magnolia Cafe nearly half an hour before Honor was due to work. Charlie looked from the New York Times as they stepped in through the alleyway door, stomping the snow off of their shoes.

"You're early," he told Honor, ruffling his paper and ignoring the chiming of the bell that meant he was needed at the front of the restaurant. Honor barely spared him a glance.

"Better early than late," she said.

Artemis raised an eyebrow; it seemed as though this was a standard greeting between the two. Jack nodded to him, humming to himself, as he walked by and hung his coat in the closet that Honor explained to him was really the gateway to Narnia.

"It's where everything that gets lost ends up going," she said, pulling something out of her coat pocket and holding it out of sight of Charlie. "You have to get used to the system here. There's not really a social hierarchy here, unless you're Max, which means you're at the absolute bottom of the heap. Hey, Two-bit," she said, nodding to a scruffy man with a huge grin on his face.

"New guy?"

"Yup. Jack, Two-bit. Two-bit, Jack. Anyway, as long as you're not as much of an ugly failure as Max, you're fine. Waiters, meaning you, are generally allowed to bitch as much as they want about how much their feet hurt, but not about how much they get paid because we're the only ones to get tips. Wear closed-toed shoes at all times or you'll get half an hour of Charlie screaming at you about proper conduct." She lead him through the kitchens, dodging chefs and waving cheerily to the girl Artemis had helped wash dishes the day before. "We get Nessy fixed, then?" Honor yelled over the commotion, evidently referring to the dishwasher, and before she could even reply Honor was talking again. "Guests appreciate it when you're chilled. Be casual but professional, and smile the shit out of your face, okay? Good waiters have the strongest cheek muscles ever." She reached into a nook and came out with a pad of paper, reaching behind Artemis to stuff it in his back pocket. "Because you're new, you get the pad for two weeks, but then you have to start remembering things by heart unless you're dealing with a party over eight. Because nobody has a memory that good." She held out a pen. "This is your weapon. Don't lose it. It's the only one you've got." She leaned backwards against a counter. "Your shift is in junction with mine, so it ends at 7. You're being paid $9 an hour at first, and then after six months you get up to $12 an hour. Charlie doesn't do contracts, but he's an honest guy. You'll get you're pay, as long as you remind him. Most of us moonlight as well, since this city is damn expensive." She blew her flaming pink hair from her eyes. "Are you good for now? Or do I need to tell you more? Here, hold this, will you?" She placed a small packet of something in his hand; Artemis looked down to see a marijuana leaf printed on the side.

"Um, no thanks —"

"Could you just hold on to it for me? I don't trust some people who could go rifling through my coat pockets, you know what I mean. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm wearing a poodle skirt, and those don't often come with pockets." Artemis hesitated, and then slipped the drug into his pocket.

"How do I know which tables I serve?"

"Oh. Yeah, I guess you'll need know that. Uh... you're taking over Julia — she got pregnant, that's why she can't wait tables at the moment — so you'll be at that cluster of tables over there by the windows. Tables 12 through 24. When Mike gets here he can take over my tables and I'll shadow you until you get the hang of it." She glanced at the old Swatch on her thin wrist. "He's usually on time, so once he gets here we can get going." As soon as this was said, a tall young man with a very creepy expression on his face leered over her shoulder, waggling his tongue until it brushed her ear, causing her to turn around and slap him.

"Ow! Honor!"

"Just remember, when you pull stunts like that, that I could easily rip your balls out." She scowled and turned back around to face Artemis. "Mike, this is Jack, the new guy, so you'll need to take over me for a couple of hours, okay?"

"Shit. Fine."

"Great. Thanks." She grabbed Artemis by the shoulders and wheeled him around, steering out of the doors of the kitchen and into the restaurant. "Here we go," she murmured, leading him toward the windows. "Smile big. Introduce yourself, and I'll cover the rest. You watch at first, okay?"

"Got it."

"Great." She led him up to a table where a mother and father sat with their little girl, who was doodling with crayon on the glass top of the table. "Hey, guys, how are you doing today?"

The father looked up with tired eyes. "Fine, thank you."

Honor nudged him. "Hi," he said, smiling genuinely as the little girl looked up; she was the spitting image of Beckett, her messy, curly blond hair springing from her head. "I'm Jack, and I'll be taking care of you today."

"Jack's brand new today," Honor cut in, placing an elbow on his shoulder, her stance and speech easy. "You're his first table ever, so if you could act like I'm not here and just talk to him it would be fantastic."

The mother pursed her lips.

"Go on," Honor whispered in his ear; Artemis felt a little startled, and thought back to all of his experiences in restaurants, pulling quotes and translating them to casual speak.

"What can I get you to drink?"

* * *

"God, it's fucking cold out here!" Honor jumped up and down, her combat boots crunching on the ice covering the concrete "Why the hell is New York so _cold?_"

"Because it's New York," Two-bit deadpanned, taking a deep drag on his cigarette stub before flicking into the already-dirty snow of the alley. "Jesus, Charlie's PMSing today."

"Is he really?" Honor asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She blew hard, her cheeks puffing out. "I didn't notice. Maybe it's because his brother lives all the way in England, and it's his goddamn birthday."

"Huh," Two-bit mused, running a hand over his scruffy hair. "That's weird. I always thought Charlie was devil spawn. I never considered the possibility that there might be another one."

"Ha ha," Honor said. "You're funny, man, a real joker."

"I didn't get the nickname for nothing." He cast his gaze over to Artemis, who was staring absently at the end of the alley where the wind took over and brutally attacked every single New Yorker on the streets. "Hey, Jack, man. You okay over there?"

"Hm?" Artemis turned back to look at his new co-worker. "Yeah. Fine. Just thinking."

"About?" Honor asked, clasping her bare hands in a sad attempt to keep them warm.

"Having sex with your mom," Two-bit drawled. Honor turned and kicked him, hard, her boot connecting to his shin. Two-bit swore violently, and Honor laughed, the cold momentarily forgotten. Artemis watched them, mildly amused, and his mind drifted to his family across the ocean.

In Ireland in was 9:15, not 4:15. The twins would be getting ready for bed right about now, his parents spending some time together in the parlor before tucking the boys in and doing the things they needed to do before turning in themselves. He knew that's what they would be doing if he were home, anyway; he had spent hours observing them over the house cameras, his mind elsewhere. Now, though, things were different. Now he was believed as dead again, much like when he had disappeared for three years, but more certain. Much more devastating, to know that Butler and Juliet were gone as well. It had been a month and a half since he had supposedly died, and he had barely spared a thought for them since. He wasn't really so different from what he had been when he was twelve. Still a very selfish creature. Still reckless. Still young.

He closed his eyes on Honor, Two-bit, and the alley. He was so tired, and the work day was just a little more than half over. He had to get used to it. It was past four; Juliet had said that Holly would be around at about now. In shorts and a camisole when it was _snowing_. Brilliant. But he knew that once Holly's voice reached him that the spiral of loneliness and hopelessness would reverse, and that things would be better. Once that voice reached him, he could smile for real, and speak to someone without being infinitely careful with every other word he said. All he wanted was to hear her speak to him. All he wanted was to have a friend again.

There was crunching in the snow behind him, but he was too afraid that he would meet bitter disappointment of it being a homeless man looking for refuge from the wind, and refused to turn around until he heard a soft call, wavering with cold, but warm, a tinge of the fieriness lacing the tones.

"Hello, Jack."

* * *

**There is a poll on my profile for the next full Artemis Fowl fic I will do once Half the Perfect World is finished. Titles only. Please vote.**


	12. Chapter 11

**CONTENT: language, mild drug referencing, sexual content

* * *

**

Chapter 11: The Homecoming

She was not the Holly he knew; her face was a little rounder and less tan, her nose thin and perky, her eyes wide and muddy brown, her lips plump and a little pouty, blue from the cold. Wavy blond wisps of hair had escaped from the ponytail and whipped around her face, and one arm gripped her body, the other clutching a worn tweed suitcase.

"Jesus, Cher, what the hell do you think you're doing?" He stepped up to her in two long strides, wrapping his thin, coat-clad arms around Holly's shoulders tightly, pressing his lips to her forehead before pulling his arms away, unbuttoning his coat to let her press her freezing body against his. Holly was wearing, as Juliet had described, only a pair of plaid short shorts, a pale pink tank top, and a pair of navy Converse, and she gladly wrapped her arms around his waist to escape the cold rather than be close to him. There was a faint air of awkwardness around them.

"I didn't know it was so cold up here," she whispered, and Artemis rolled his eyes at Juliet's excuse to have him take her clothes shopping; even though Juliet was taking on the character of a rough, angry woman, she still had that spark underneath the mask.

"We'll take you clothes shopping after I get off," he muttered.

"Ho ho ho, who's this?" Honor asked, stepping close, Two-bit at her side.

"I'm Cher," Holly said in a soft, childish voice that fit her character well. "I'm Jack's girlfriend."

"And roomie, I hear," Two-bit added, waggling his eyebrows with a wry grin. "Nice to meet you, darling."

"Damn, girl, why are you dressed like that?" Honor asked. "It's snowing, for God's sake."

Two-bit snorted. "This isn't snow, Honor. It's ice. It isn't cold enough for snow."

The pink-haired woman turned to glare at him. "Instead of bitching about how incredibly wrong I think about the weather, why don't you make yourself useful and grab a spare coat from the closet?"

"I'll do it," Artemis said. "I need to get her inside anyway." Honor shrugged and Two-bit threw his stub of his second cigarette into the piling slush, which Holly was once again spared from seeing due to her face being shamelessly smashed into Artemis's chest. He awkwardly took a step towards the door, prompting Holly to look up from his jacket and follow his lead, and they shuffled slowly to the warmth of the Magnolia Cafe. Charlie looked up as Artemis came in the door and let Holly out of her jacket, his face quickly folding into a scowl.

"No way in hell, lad, get her out."

Honor slipped past them, and then Two-bit. "Charlie, this is my girlfriend Cher," he said, a bit surprised that he could say it to easily, but then again, he _had _been acting for the entire last month of his life. "She just got in, like, an hour ago, and she has no clothes bigger than what she's wearing." Charlie's hard face softened a little at this as Holly gave an involuntary shiver in the draft that came from the crack underneath the door.

"All right," he muttered. "Come on in, lass, just grab a table, alright? I don't want you faffing around my kitchens."

Artemis nodded to Charlie in thanks and before he could move Honor reached over and steered Holly toward the coat closet, shoving open the door and pulling her inside. He followed, more than a little curious. When he cleared the door he saw Honor rummaging around the hanging coats.

"...and so there are always spares. You can borrow one for now." She frowned, intent on finding an ownerless coat in the selection. "Two-bit... Mike... Lord, what is that ugly thing still doing here? She left a year ago... Christ..." Her ramblings went down to mutters as she shifted around the coats, and she swore loudly as about five hangers came off the bar. Artemis shot out a hand to catch them, albeit a little clumsily, and succeeded in knocking Honor's bag off of the hanger. It hit the ground, and the contents spilled out, along with the book she had checked out from the library earlier.

"Damn, sorry —"

"Don't." Honor's voice was sharp as she reached out to snatch the fallen coats from him. "I'll pick it up myself. Just go."

Holly looked between them with the wide eyes that seemed characteristic to her identity, but Artemis was more than a little miffed. He wasn't very accomplished in social interaction outside of acting and psychology, but he knew enough to tell when someone was hiding something. He held Honor's gaze for a moment before stripping his coat off and wrapping it around Holly, leading her out of the closet and into the main part of the restaurant, pulling her up to the hostess Mimi.

"You're new here, aren't you?" she asked, a little distracted as the first of the dinner rush began pouring in.

"Ah... Yeah. Charlie told me to grab her a table right away. Do you have a spare?"

Mimi's gaze traveled over the restaurant. "Yeah, in the corner by the windows." Her eyes traveled to Holly. "Jesus Christ, girl, put some pants on, it is bitch-ass freezing outside."

"I didn't know..." Holly said in her newly soft voice before Artemis quickly led her to the two-seater table in the corner, sitting her down before flipping his hair out of his eyes. "How are you?" she asked, and for a moment he could see the face of the old Holly underneath the act and cosmetic surgery.

He shook his head. "We'll talk later," he said. "Coffee?"

"Gods, yes."

"_God_," Artemis corrected, low enough so that no one else would hear. "Singular. Not plural." He shot off before Holly could so much as look at him apologetically, checking on one table before heading back into the kitchens. Honor caught him at the coffee station where he was loading strong black coffee into a mug.

"Creamer, sugar, spoon, saucer," she said, handing him the objects one by one, pushing a glass into his hand once he had assembled the coffee components. "Take a water as well."

"Thank you," he replied, balancing the two on a tray before grabbing a new silverware set for the table he had checked on and moving back out into the seating area, dropping off the silverware at the table before giving Holly her coffee and water. "Do you want anything to eat?"

"Anything with vegetables in it," she sighed, rubbing her temples, a grimace splayed across her face. Artemis took to work, and the hours passed until 7 rolled around and Artemis hit the time stamp, ending his shift and first day of work. Ever.

"You ready, babe?"

Holly looked up, her eyes ringed in circles, looking exhausted and aching for contact, but smiled all the same. "Yeah," she said, her voice a little hoarse, and stood stiffly, letting Artemis lead her through the kitchens. They were nearly out the door when Honor's voice called over the din.

"Hey, Jack, you still got that pot I gave you earlier?"

At this, Holly whipped around, her eyes blazing with disbelief. Artemis shot her a look, and dug the small packet out of his pocket, handing it to Honor as she slipped past him, saluting lazily before disappearing into the alleyway, her poodle skirt swishing around her legs in the cold winter breeze. Artemis stepped out after her, followed by a seething Holly.

"I can't _believe _you," she hissed, and he stopped, turning to face her; she was clutching her arms to her chest, her fingers gripping the sleeves of his coat, glaring at him as stray strands of hair blew around her face. Behind her, Two-Bit and Mike opened the door from inside and stepped out, laughing and roughing around. "How could you keep something like that from me?"

"I — wait, what?"

"Smoking, Artemi —"

It happened in almost slow motion, as both a reflex to halt his name from passing over her lips and as an action fueled by repressed desire. Artemis seized her shoulders and yanked her roughly to him, mashing his lips against hers. He felt Holly seize up, and he responded, once he was sure that she would not try to talk, by letting up on the pressure and softly parting her lips with his. Snow was falling, brushing their faces, and Artemis felt himself shiver, though whether it was from the cold or the feeling of his tongue ghosting over Holly's lower lip he wasn't entirely sure.

Two-bit whistled, and Artemis pulled away with a rather uncharacteristic mischievous grin that belonged to his younger brothers, though his hard, pressing eyes said one thing and one thing only; _shut up and let me do the talking. _Holly blinked, and he saw a building scowl on her face as he playfully flipped Two-bit off before wrapping an arm around her shoulder, leading her out onto the busy New York sidewalks, the light fading from the sky.

"Chill, babe. It's not mine," he said, drawing her close, feeling how warm she was against the bite of the air. "I was holding onto it for Honor." He felt Holly relax slightly, though even through his coat it was obvious that her shoulders were tensed. He felt his stomach twist, biting a lip. "I promise."

She shot him a glare. "When you use that utterly sincere tone with me I know you're lying."

His lips flicked upward, turning her true statement into a joke. "You need clothes," he said, and took her suitcase from her. "Salvation Army, right down the way. One-stop shopping."

Holly snorted, but leaned her head on his shivering shoulder. "You, shopping at Salvation Army? Isn't that a secondhand store? I must be dreaming."

"Cher, hon, I have shopped at secondhand stores my entire life," he said easily, and she muffled a laugh. "You know that." He pulled the door open for her, and she stepped inside, handing him his coat. She shrugged it on immediately, having walked in the snow with no winter protection, and he pointed Holly toward the women's section before starting off.

"Where are you going?"

"Pajamas," he said. "I'll be over in a minute."

When Holly and Artemis left the Salvation Army they had bags full of seven pairs of pants, ten shirts of various styles, one pair of boots, two pairs of sneakers, a heavy tweed winter coat, three pairs of lady pajamas and three pairs of male pajamas, two scarves, and a pair of mittens. Holly had her needed undergarments in her suitcase. They lugged the bags across town, buying Holly a subway pass before entering the tunnels. She stayed very close to him the whole way, her eyes wandering nervously over people, jumping violently the first time a train passed by.

"Holy shit!" she yelled, her hand on her thudding heart as Artemis picked up the bags she had dropped. "I was not expecting that."

"This is us," he murmured, pushing her forward as the doors opened. They slipped inside the coach together, pushed chest to chest due to a delayed rush hour.

"How's the place?" she asked, and, figuring she was talking about the apartment, he nodded.

"I think you'll like it," he said. "It may be a bit... overwhelming, at first, but beyond the front door it's quite nice for only $1050 a month."

"Gods, that's steep."

"_God_," he said softly. "And no, not really. For this city and for the apartment, it's actually quite cheap." They travelled the next few minutes in silence before Artemis pushed her toward the opening doors, letting them break into the stale air of the platform, which was sweet and fresh after the reek of homeless men that made up the coach. Holly stood for a minute, her breath a little shaky as the train moved on without them.

"Are you alright?"

She smiled softly up at him, her eyes a bit hysterical. "Claustrophobic, remember?"

"I know." He patted her on the back, something he had once seen Butler do to a comrade. Holly raised an eyebrow, and he thought vaguely that the action might have been out of place. "You'll have to get used to it, though. Subway is the main transportation in this city."

"Joy." They traipsed up the stairs together, their hands too full with bags to slip together, but they enjoyed each other's company all the same, relishing in the feeling of being with a trusted friend after a full month of anxiety. Holly eyed the trash gathering on the sidewalks and the alleyways, half hidden by snow, with disgust and a bit of horror, and Artemis eyed her with a bit of the same. Her new face was more commercially _pretty _than the Holly he knew; nearly symmetrical, her nose straight and thin, her eyes wide and innocent, though he knew better. Holly caught him looking and he quickly shifted his gaze to a passing wannabe cameraman, his raw hands clutching at an old film camera.

"No, thanks," Artemis said firmly, and something in his voice and expression made the eager young man drop the lens away from his face. Artemis steered Holly and himself toward the door to the building; Holly regarded the slightly depleted building calmly, having lived in worse. Artemis led her up the stairwell, her expression changing when she saw the blue-painted hallway leading to his apartment. _Their_ apartment. A little over a month ago, if Artemis Fowl had been told that he and Holly Short would be living together within six weeks, he would have laughed.

The door to the lesbians Jesse and Layla's apartment flew open, and a sleek Asian woman walked straight into them.

"Whoops! My bad," Jesse said, her voice a little low, but she brightened when she saw who she had run into. "Hey, boy! How are you!" She grinned broadly, throwing her arms around his shoulders. "Haven't seen you in about a week. Are you a hermit? You know, like the crab? Are you a hermit crab?" She giggled at her own wit, reminding Artemis strikingly of Mulch Diggums.

"For God's sake, Jess, leave him alone," Layla said from the doorway, hey waist-length hair swishing around as she shook her head apologetically. "I'm sorry. She's had a few too many wine coolers."

Jesse giggled, and then caught sight of Holly, who was watching the scene warily. "Oh my Gawd," she gaped, clutching Holly's face. "You are so _cute_." Her head whipped back around to face Artemis, who was trying to decide how to react to Holly's face being groped by a stranger. "Is this the girlfriend you've told us about, Jack? Cher?"

"Um... yeah... could you...?"

"You're adorable, sweetheart," Jesse said to Holly, tapping her nose before giggling. Layla stepped in, dragging the drunk Jesse back into their apartment and closing the door. Artemis and Holly stood a bit awkwardly in the hallway before he nodded her over to their door, digging his key out of his pocket and unlocking it. Holly stood in the doorway, overwhelmed by the busy mural on the adjacent wall.

"Wow. Someone was artistic."

"It's nice, once you get used to it," Artemis replied, kicking the door shut as they both stood there, observing the mural for a short while before Holly proceeded warily into the kitchen, Artemis following, a bit amused as he watched her explore the apartment. It was the same as when he had moved in and constructed the furniture, except for one addition he had felt was necessary on a rather blank living room wall. Holly read it aloud.

"_Inside the tight leaves_

_Compressed into pristine shape_

_To please the eye_

_Lies a small wisp of smoke_

_That moves excitedly_

_Oblivious to the walls of its cage._

_Crouched inside the coat pocket_

_Of a large man,_

_It rests, teeth barred_

_Waiting for the chance_

_To rip the man's flesh from his bones._

_And in the shadow his coat creates_

_It almost looks as if it's smiling._

_On the underside of a table leg_

_A small parasite_

_That will prove fatal_

_With the slightest touch of its body_

_Sleeps: dreaming of blood._

_Behind the door_

_The couple that own the restaurant_

_Scream at each other_

_And the man's arm swings back_

_Landing on the woman_

_With a satisfying smack._

_A woman's poodle_

_Plots revenge_

_The gears in its small mind whirring_

_Salivating_

_For her dainty hors d'oeuvres_

_Perched delicately on her plate._

_A man with a top hat grins,_

_His smile stretching_

_Audible snaps and crunches_

_Heard as the skin gives way_

_To gaping sores._

_And the woman scowls,_

_Drinking her bittersweet tea,_

_And sighs:_

'_Everything is not as it seems.'"_

Holly looked away from the wall, her eyes resting on Artemis, who leaned against the door to the bedroom. "That's your calligraphy." Her eyes drifted back to the letter, scripted elegantly over the pale robin's egg blue of the wall. "What does it mean?"

"It's my favorite poem, titled _Cafe Oblivious_," Artemis said simply. "Author unknown."

Holly scoffed. "And here I was thinking your favorite poet was Keats or Shakespeare or something."

Artemis was miffed. "I said poem, not poet, and I do rather enjoy both of them, Holly. But this speaks to me, abstractly of course. There is something written between the words. Do you feel it?"

"No."

He rolled his eyes. "No, you wouldn't. You were never one partial to Language Arts in high school, were you?"

"You're the stalker; I'm sure you've seen my grades."

Artemis's eyes sparkled behind the green contacts. "Yes, I have. They are quite amusing. A 100 in Physical Education across the board. Mixed 80s for all the academics."

"I had a few 90s mixed in there," Holly replied. "I was the kid who got into fights. The reason I first got recruited by the LEP was because I was beating the crap out of Max Green in the hallways. He always had a bit of a crush on me, but he was a creep. He went the LEP route too, Recon. But I rose in the ranks a lot faster than him." Her eyes were a bit unfocused for a minute, but then her attention snapped back to the poem. "But I paid enough attention to know that this poem has no rhythm whatsoever. Not a scrap."

"No, it really doesn't."

"Which would make it prose."

"Debatable," Artemis replied. "The author indented simply when they felt that it was needed, not when the iambic pentameter told them to." He shrugged lightly. "In some ways, this freestyle is my favorite kind of poetry, because there are no rules." They fell into comfortable silence.

"Artemis," Holly said after a while. His gaze, which had been trained at the snow falling out the window, snapped back to her. "I noticed something." He nodded for her to continue. "There's only one bed in this apartment."

Artemis smirked. "Yes, I know. That's why I bought pajamas."

"You move fast."

"We're posing as a boyfriend and girlfriend who share an apartment. Obviously it would be a little weird if it didn't seem like we were sleeping together." His cheeks tinged a little pink when he said this. "I'll sleep on the couch if I need to."

"I... um... no, you don't have to." Holly shuffled her feet. "That wouldn't be fair. Sorry to have brought it up."

Artemis sighed. "It needed to be addressed anyway." He glanced at his watch and walked toward the bedroom, depositing the bag of clothing by the door. "I don't know how you feel, but I was woken up very rudely this morning, and I am very tired." He stepped through the doorway, flicking on the light as Holly followed, dragging in the bags with her. She tossed him the pajamas he had bought and took her own out, biting her lips. Artemis slid past her and through the apartment to the bathroom, where he changed into the faded red plaid flannel pajama pants and white T-shirt, quickly moving through his nightly routine of shedding his make-up and molds before moving back to the bedroom. Holly hadn't moved. Figuring that she would talk when she wanted to, Artemis deposited his dirty clothes into a small basket by the dresser, and was not disappointed.

"Did you mean it?" Holly asked through the silence, and he turned around, genuinely confused. "The... in the alleyway. When you kissed me." Her face tinged pink, and she avoided his eyes as she sat down on the edge of the bed, her pajamas cradled between her fingers. Artemis moved silently across the room, and she looked up as he drew close to her knees, his hands coming to rest, perhaps a little nervously, on her shoulders. He bent down to her level, pressing his lips carefully to hers. She closed her eyes, the pajamas slipping from her hands, which ghosted along his arms to his neck, where they rested as he instinctively pushed her back until her head hit the blankets, rumpled from his hurried morning. It was unfamiliar territory, what they were sinking into, but circumstances were far different than they ever would have been normally; on the run with no one to trust but each other. Things were accelerated, Artemis found himself thinking in the back of his mind as his mouth brushed a trail along Holly's jaw. It would have taken months, years even, to get to the place they were now. Which was in his bed. It was then that Artemis realized that his body rested between Holly's legs, a fact she apparently became conscious of right about the time that he did. They both froze, pulling a bit away and looking each other in the eyes.

"I apologize," Artemis muttered, pulling completely away from Holly before rising to his knees and then standing up. "That was completely uncalled for on my part." He looked away, his heart still thudding dangerously fast, nearly flying from his chest in reaction to being closer than he had ever been to his want of Holly. "I just... I'm sorry. It was very rude of me."

"Don't be," Holly said quietly, sitting up. "Maybe someday, Artemis." She stood up, taking her pajamas again before leaving the room to change, juxtaposition to the lack of modesty she had shown in the hotel room a month ago. Artemis looked after her, and only after he heard the bathroom door close did he whisper;

"Someday."

* * *

"Yo, yo, Jack!"

Artemis looked up from the New York Times just as Honor dropped bodily into the seat next to him, her lips flapping before she smiled lazily at him.

"How was your night, bud?" She waggled her eyebrows. "First night with the girlfriend home, right?"

Artemis felt his face burning, and buried his nose in his newspaper, pretending that he couldn't hear Honor's chuckles in his ear. Remnants of the night previous that he had tried very hard to bury — remnants of the unexpected, euphoric and slightly pained feeling he had gotten — were resurfaced, thanks to the annoying woman laughing next to him on the otherwise dead subway.

"I like your pants," he said, smirking behind his newspaper.

Honor glanced proudly down at her lime green skinny jeans. "Oh, come on, Jack. You know you would wear them."

Artemis considered it for a moment, and then nodded.

"You read the Times?"

"Every day. I usually steal it, though."

"That stuff is trash, man."

"Keeps me up to date." He glanced up, giving her a small smile. "Newspapers have their values."

"As opposed to?"

"Online news reports."

"Paper waster."

"Tech head."

Honor blew her hair out of her eyes, hiking up the black suspenders that were today appropriately fastened over her shoulders, her coat resting in her lap. "Touché, buddy, touché." She patted his thigh. "So what's the girl up to today? Did you buy something so that she wasn't parading around this damn city half naked?"

"Don't say that. For all the short shorts she wears, she really is quite conservative."

"Religious?"

"Catholic."

"Against fornication?"

"Well..." Artemis ducked behind the paper, shaking his shoulders in pretend laughter. Beyond the gray of the Life and Arts section, he could hear Honor laughing with him.

"Naughty girl," she snickered, and they fell into silence as the subway zipped underneath the millions of pounding feet and rolling tires and creaking pipes. Artemis found himself reading the same line of a column over and over again, his mind wandering out of the pneumatic doors of the subway, passing through the sewer systems and out of a manhole, jumping up the skyscrapers like stairs until he reached the sky, soaring out into space. He wondered vaguely what Holly was doing as they sat in the subway, ignoring the man smoking weed and the black woman with a face that belonged to a victim of Down's Syndrome humming quite loud and off tune. His mind had drifted back to the morning, which had been slightly awkward due to unexpected wake up of Holly rolling over onto Artemis.

"Gods, Artemis, there's no food in here." Holly had closed one cupboard and opened another. "Why aren't you dead? There's nothing to eat."

"God," Artemis had corrected with a sigh. "I've had Butler my whole life. I never thought I would need to learn how to cook."

"What, and you expect me to do it?"

"Or at least teach me how. Because you, unlike me, have lived by yourself for thirty-odd years, haven't you?"

Holly had snorted, shooting an exasperated look his way. "Yeah, on take-out." Giving up on her search for anything edible, she had sank to the ground, her legs splaying out over the floor. "I burn anything I touch. My mother said I was hopeless."

"Not hopeless," Artemis had reminded her. "Just a little... shall we say, challenged?" He had laughed slightly, and earned a smack on the side of the head before he and Holly settled for a banana each.

And now he was sitting in the subway, scanning the paper for any news that mattered — none, as far as he could tell — and watching the world pass by beside him. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, he was detached from normality, and nothing was really going to change that.

In Magnolia, Charlie was going on a rampant about a blind date, tequila, and the eczema on his arms that he called his "bloody leprosy." Artemis and Honor skirted past him — Honor muttering that it was normal — and hung their coats in the coat room, Honor slinging her overflowing book bag onto the rack before parading off into the kitchens, leaving Artemis alone in the room. He shrugged his coat off and hung it between a leather jacket and a floor-length feathered monstrosity, and was about to follow Honor out when three coats and her book bag fell onto the floor. He cursed softly and moved back to pick them up.

Underneath the coats, her bag had opened and the contents spilled all over the floor. Artemis worked quickly to shove everything back in the bag, but his fingers lingered on a paperback book with the laminated covering characteristic of library material. The book Honor had hidden from him the other day. He knew it wasn't his place, but Artemis Fowl had been born with a curious nature, bestowing him with an itch to know all things.

He flipped it over, his eyebrows raising a bit at the title. _What do I do if my Teen is Doing Drugs?_

"Jack?" Honor's voice called through the doorway, and he shoved the book back in the bag before standing and placing it back on the rack.

"Yo." He strode into the kitchen, the picture of lazy confidence, and grabbed his notebook and pen. His eyes lingered on Honor, her smile wide as she listened to something Two-bit said. She laughed a bit and turned to Artemis as he came closer.

"Hurry your ass up, boy, your shift starts in, like, ten seconds."

Artemis didn't smile in return. "Look... do you need help?" _Damn morals,_ he thought.

Her grin faded. "What do you mean?"

"Your book bag fell in there, Honor," he said in a low voice, and Two-bit snorted when he realized that he was being excluded from the conversation. "I saw the book, Honor. Your little brother... two and two make four."

Her head snapped away, her arms tense as she grabbed a bobby pin from the jar on the counter. "It's none of your business," she snapped. "I can deal with it myself."

Artemis watched her for a moment more before punching in his time and walking quickly through the door to the seating area, plastering yet another fake smile on his face.

* * *

**This is where the borderline mature content begins. There will be nothing graphic — hence, the T rating — but there will be language and awkward talking and violence. And guys, I don't say it often because it bothers me when people whine about it every freaking chapter, but I would like to know how I'm doing and what I can do better, so please review if you have time.**

**There is a poll on my profile for the next full Artemis Fowl fic I will do once Half the Perfect World is finished. Titles only. Please vote.**


	13. Chapter 12

**Oh, goody. An author's note.  
**

**I aplogize for the delay with this. I'm not sure how many days it has been, but I know it has been longer than usual. But what can I say? School is a bitch. This chapter is slightly OOC on Artemis's part, but my aim is that through having to live as a completely different person, he changes over time. At this point in the story he's been acting nearly 24/7 as Jack Dunbar, and so if he slowly grow more OOC in the story, try not to be offended. I there are some of you who live by making everything IN CHARACTER. And that's not a bad thing. But, as a heads up, this is OOC on purpose. And in further news, most of the ending is written. I just have a big chunk of middle to go.  
**

**Updates on the next fic: I am now completely disregarding the poll. Your opinions matter to my heart... but my brain has a different agenda. The next fic (well, the next three, actually) has been decided will be announced at the end of the epilogue. **

**CONTENT: some sexual content, language

* * *

**

Chapter 12: Building up the Wall

Artemis had come to realize that Wednesdays were a blessing. Wednesdays, he didn't have to work. Wednesdays, his feet didn't feel like they were going to fall off. Wednesdays, he could rest easy, knowing that he wouldn't have to talk to anyone but Holly.

"I guess I could become a prostitute if I absolutely had to," she muttered, thumbing through a paperback that seemed to grow increasingly worse with each page. "I just can't get over how hard it is to find a job in this city."

"Mmm," Artemis replied, tracing the crack in the ceiling. They lay on opposite sides of the bed on top of the covers, Holly curled up with her cheap read, Artemis sprawled over the duvet, feeling like a bit like a drunk jellyfish. It was peaceful in the apartment; the fire department had come and gone after their first try at cooking on the stove, the man who slept in the stairwell wasn't walking up and down their hallway singing Christmas carols, and it was an abnormally warm for a New York winter day.

"I have a bit of a bone to pick with you," Holly had said a week after arriving. "Fairies hate the cold. You know that." He had raised an eyebrow, looking up groggily from his spoon and grapefruit. "And you move us to just about the coldest city in this goddamn country." She had traced the top of her water glass, having refused to accept the coffee he had offered her, her mouth twisting, aggravated. He felt his stomach dip as she chewed her tongue; he hadn't kissed those lips since the night she had arrived. Things had been slightly off kilter since then. His attention had been brought back to her eyes as her fingers moved to the side of the glass and she tapped it thoughtfully. "It's because you're still pissed about the underwear thing."

"_What?" _Artemis had blinked furiously, trying desperately to remember what she was talking about; his brain still had the odd social fog over it.

"Oh, come _on_, genius boy. You couldn't have forgotten that." He looked at her blankly.

"Do you mean when we had to undress to go back in time?"

"Sort of," she had sighed, rolling her eyes. "God, Artemis, forgetful much?. When I sent you ten pairs of cheap red boxers for Christmas and you opened them in front of your parents and Butler, who was really the only one who got the joke, and Foaly and I had been watching over the security network and he put on the news feeds down in Haven?"

"Oh, yes," Artemis had muttered, lowering his face. He had tried very hard to forget about that little incident, and had nearly managed it. "Yes, and it played all over the 200-foot-long news screens in Haven."

"Hey, _that _wasn't my fault. I just told him to watch you open it, not to broadcast the feed." She had shrugged. "You refused to talk to me for two weeks. _That's _my thought as to why you moved us up here. Because you're secretly still mad about it."

He had given her a withering look. "Holly, that was years ago. Do you really think of me as _that _juvenile?"

"Hey, I'm still bent out of shape over the kidnapping thing." She had taken a large gulp of water and when she had looked back, Artemis was watching her with a curious and slightly hurt expression.

"Are you really?" he had asked.

She had swallowed noisily. "I... no. I'm sorry, Artemis. That was tasteless."

He had nodded silently, and then stood, dumping his empty grapefruit skin into the trash before moving to wash his hands. There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence in the kitchen as Holly watched him guiltily. When he turned the water off he remained at the sink, his gaze cast out through the living room and out the windows.

"I moved us up here," he said, "for many reasons, and one of them_ is_ that fairies hate the cold. I knew that would be an automatic deterrent to this location." He had turned his face back toward her, his eyes hidden by his hair. "So that it might be a little bit harder for them to find us."

Holly had nodded silently, her eyes fixed on her fingers as they traced the rim of her glass.

"Why are we doing this to ourselves, Holly?" he had whispered, his eyes going back to the windows. "It's only making things worse." He had then pushed off from the counter, crossing the little room and dragging his chair across the floor so that he was sitting right next to her. "If we're going to make this work, we're going to have to kiss again sooner or later."

She had blinked at his bluntness and at the ferocity in his face. "It's not that simple, Arty," she had said, then his lips had closed over hers.

Things had gotten better after that. The awkwardness all but evaporated, and they acted nearly as friends, but a bit physically closer than normal friends were. After all, normal friends did not often hold hands on the subway or sneak shy little kisses onto the other's lips. The weeks had passed and life had gone on until December arrived with the cheery jingle of bells and belly laugh of a mysterious children's fantasy.

And on this early day of December, impossibly warm sunlight was shining through the windows of the apartment they had come to call "home," and despite the faulty heater in their building, they were not quite cold.

"I think you as a prostitute would be absolutely terrifying," he said, somewhat sleepily, and Holly laughed.

"I think so too," she muttered, throwing her paperback across the room, where it hit the wall with a dull thunk. She blew a raspberry as she uncurled her body and pushed her legs stiffly towards the end of the bed, rumpling the duvet. Artemis watched her toes strain as she stretched, her big toe brushing his elbow.

"God," she groaned, and Artemis looked away from her foot, his eyes returning to that habitual road that was the crack on the ceiling. Something inside him whined pitifully to hear Holly say 'God' in the place of 'Gods.'

The sun had set enough to shine right through the windows and into their faces; they squinted as the golden orange light moved ever so slowly over them, and Artemis used his feet to turn himself around in hopes to get the sun out of his eyes. His head ended up on Holly's thigh and the sun remained in his vision, but he decided to keep his head where it was, resting his feet on the bedside table.

They were quiet for a time until there came an odd, muffled banging from the apartment next door. They listened for a moment before bursting simultaneously into laughter; the room across the wall was the bedroom of the lesbian next-door-neighbors, and they both had little doubt in their minds that the sound was the headboard, and that the cause was either some very violent cockroaches or some very energetic sex.

Holly and Artemis laughed for a while, and even after the funniness of the situation faded, soft chuckles kept emitting from them, settling them eventually into a pleasant silence. Unconsciously, the afternoon began to pass, both of them dozing off and waking up, dozing off, waking up... And so they lay there, perpendicular on the bed, Artemis's head lolling on Holly's leg, Holly's eyes closed or tracing the sliver of sky visible past the buildings.

After a time, when the light was mostly faded except for a slightly golden glow over the room, Artemis's hand reached, self-conscious, up over his head and resting on her leg, slowly tracing lines up and down her skin. His long, pale fingers stopped whenever they found a raised scar on her legs; before she had come back from surgery, Artemis had never clearly seen her legs, and so it was a mystery to him as to why her skin was riddled with puckered lines and oddly shaped lacerations. His fingertips stopped over a particularly textured ovular scar just above her knee.

"I was climbing on rooftops," Holly said softly once she realized where his hand lingered. "Playing with my cousin Eve. Running and jumping from roof to roof, like kids did in the slums back then."

"You grew up in the slums?" Artemis questioned quietly, resuming his tracing of her legs as his eyes closed on the crack in the ceiling.

"Uh-huh. Believe it or not, it was a good place to grow up; lots of kids, not too much crime, mostly good morals." She was mute for a minute, reminiscing in the years of childhood, remembering good things and bad. Artemis waiting patiently for her to continue. "Anyway," she said, "I jumped for a roof that was a little too far for me and nearly fell six stories." She gave a little noise between a laugh and a sigh. "Lucky for me, I managed to grab onto a thermo-sensor about halfway down and only ended up scraping the skin off my knee down to the bone. I think it was some sort of badly-repaired planter that did it... they used wire or something. But I only had enough magic in me to heal it — kids never have as much as adults do — and I didn't want to get rid of the scar. My mother was cool with it when she was reassured that I was okay."

"Why?" he asked, turning his head to try and look up at her face.

"Why what?"

"Why did you want to keep it?"

She was silent again. "Because of the feeling," she finally said. "I didn't know what it was at the time, but it was my first real memory of flying."

Artemis's lips twitched, and his fingers lingered on another scar high on her thigh, short but especially puckered. "This one?"

Holly laughed for real this time. "That would be the one mark my mother ever left on the surface of me."

"How so?"

Her face changed from a small smile to a regretful, sad gathering of the brow and pull of the lips. "There was a place," she said, "aboveground, about fifty miles away from Tara. It was gorgeous, and humans couldn't get there. Something to do with some old deterring enchantment; it was some old wizard spot before the magical spring died up, I don't know. It was the one place aboveground where the People didn't have to hide. Families went up there to spend the day together, couples went up for sunlit dates, old fairies went up just to remember what it felt like. At one time it was far, far out in the country, but cities do grow, and soon it was bordering one." She sighed slowly, blond hair fluttering out of her eyes. "I was playing that human game... you know, the one where you have a ball and a tail and everyone wants either your ball or your tail?"

"Flag football?"

"Yeah, that." She closed her eyes. "I was playing it with a bunch of boys. My mother was skinning sticks under a tree. It was something she liked to do aboveground, and since they were dead pieces of wood it wouldn't hurt anything to carve them into something beautiful. I had worked up a good sweat playing around, and so I had come running down the hill — and keep in mind, I wasn't exactly the most graceful little kid under the planet — and so, of course, I tripped on a rock near the tree. My mother must have forgotten that she had the knife in her hand and instinctively reached out to catch me, stabbing through my thigh."

Artemis winced audibly.

"I was out of magic at that point, so she used what she could to heal me, but wouldn't let anyone at that place help because magic runs more rampant in children. She wanted to be careful and make sure nothing happened because of the magic. Since there was a scar left, she told me that she would heal it the next time she had completed the Ritual. But two weeks after that, the old enchantment broke and the humans burned the trees down to make room for livestock."

"Awful."

"I kept it to remind me of that place." He realized her fingers were lightly pulling at his hair, twirling it around and slipping through it easily, and he leaned slightly into the touch. "These scars make me who I am. I kept them all for a reason." She smiled as his face turned up to look at her, focusing on her face. To prove her point, Holly's waggled her fingers in front of his mismatched gaze, making him go cross-eyed as his attention was drawn to the scar circling her index finger. He merely looked at it for a moment before his face turned stark white and he shot up into a sitting position.

"Oh, God!" he hissed, leaping up from the bed. "I'm so stupid! Why didn't I think of this earlier? Some damn self-proclaimed genius I am!" He flung himself into the bathroom, and as Holly followed him she saw him hastily putting in the green contacts.

"You're leaving? Why?"

"Call Butler and Juliet and tell them not to leave their apartments," Artemis commanded hurriedly, skirting the question as he picked up the nose mold and glue brush. "You don't leave either. I'll delete the calls from the record when I get back. Don't answer the door, and close the blinds." He finished gluing the nose to his face, smoothing compressed mineral powder over his face to make it look seamless. He strode rapidly out of the bathroom, quickly kissing Holly's hair before snatching his coat, gloves, and wallet before heading out the door.

* * *

It was hours before he was back; hours in which Holly sat on the couch or on the floor, hours in which she nervously ate orange after orange, hours in which she tried to focus on the shitty novel she had bought for a dollar from a vendor on the corner before giving up and laying, stolid, on the bed, her eyes curiously tracing the ordinary crack in the ceiling that she always caught Artemis staring at. She lay there as five o'clock turned to six and six bled into seven, eight, nine, ten... and then there was the sound of the key in the door.

Holly shot up and was in the living room just as Artemis walked in, shedding his coat carelessly and uncharacteristically onto the floor, grabbing Holly by the shoulders and sitting her down on the couch. She opened her mouth to question him, but he beat her to it, asking her if she had any scars underneath her clothing. Holly's brow furrowed as she nodded, her arms unconsciously crossing over her stomach in an act of self-consciousness.

"You weren't embarrassed at the hotel in New Jersey," Artemis replied curtly. "Shirt off, please. I need to do this."

Holly scowled before pulling her T-shirt over her head, standing there in her bra and shorts, while Artemis looked her over clinically, his focus keeping him from being deterred either from distraction or embarrassment. "Just one on your back," he muttered to himself, and reached down to the floor where his coat lay. He returned a moment later with a bottle of sludgy green lotion, uncapping it and pouring a bit into his hands before rubbing it onto the long, thin scar on her lower back.

"Artemis," Holly finally said, but he only replied with a small grunt. "What are you doing?"

"Very potent scar removal," Artemis replied tersely, moving down to her legs, which he began to work quickly on. "It's actually very illegal — there's quite a large amount of opium in the mixture, enough to get high off of — but it is the best scar removal treatment there is."

"You're removing my scars?" Holly asked, her voice rising in pitch, but she obediently stayed standing up straight.

"I have to," Artemis said sharply. "Like you said, they make up part of who you are — do not put your shirt back on, Holly. This needs to soak into your skin — and therefore this is a mean of finding you. This is a very potent substance, so do not feel alarmed if you begin to feel euphoric, confused, nauseated, or itchy."

"I don't think I'm going to be euphoric any time soon," Holly said, her voice shaking slightly, and it was at that point that Artemis realized just how distressed she was. He looked up from her legs, his fake colored eyes searching hers before one tear dripped down her nose and landed on his forehead. He flinched and then rose quickly, pulling her into a hug, mindful of the lotion all over her back.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "But my job right know is to keep us all safe."

"I know," Holly gasped into his shirt, wiping her eyes furiously with the palm of her hands. "I just... It's the one connection I have left to my mother. So many of these remind me of my childhood... or the Academy... or people I knew and loved..." She realized that Artemis had grown stiff in realization that Holly had no shirt on and that they were pressed chest to chest, and so spared him the embarrassment of pulling away, slipping out of his arms.

"I know," he murmured after a minute. "But this is what life is right now, Holly. I know it sounds harsh — and it's extremely difficult for me as well — but you have to let go of all of that."

She nodded and held out her hand to him. He understood at once, like he always did, and took it in his, reaching out to wipe the last of the few tears off her cheeks before squirting more lotion into his hands and applying plentiful amounts to the scar encircling her trigger finger. He ordered her gently to remain where she was and travelled briefly to the bathroom, returning with an adhesive bandage and wrapping it tightly around the finger to secure the lotion specifically to the scar.

"We have to do this every night until they're gone," he said softly, his hand reaching up to brush her hair gently out of her eyes. "It shouldn't be long, but this is of utter importance." He wrinkled his nose slightly. "Now, opium stinks, so I will be sleeping on the couch tonight and every night until this is over."

"I'm smaller, Artemis. I'll sleep on the couch."

He shook his head. "You can wash sheets, Holly. You can't wash a couch." He pushed her gently toward the bedroom, and he followed only to grab pajamas before leaving her alone in the room at night for the first time since she had arrived in New York.

She didn't have to lay in bed for long before she slipped into sleep. Her dream was a pure drug trip; she was in a flat black space but there were all kinds of flashing lights and the oddest creatures Holly had ever seen in her life, dancing and laughing around her, drawing nearer and nearer, the lights flashing faster and faster and brighter and brighter until she felt herself engulfed in everything, sinking in some sort of hysteric euphoria until she found herself bent over her knees, gasping frantically and clawing at the sheets twisted over her legs. Her breathing felt restricted and her mouth dry as she drew her hands over her face, droplets of sweat collecting on her palms from her forehead and cheeks. She felt strangely drowsy and sluggish, her tongue lying heavy in her mouth. With some difficulty, Holly extracted her legs from the sheets, her toes curling against the cold air, and sat, shaking slightly, on the edge of the bed.

"Shit," she whispered. "Potent drug, my ass."

She stood, quivering a bit, and the walked unsteadily to the door, a glance at the alarm clock telling her that it was three in the morning. She had trouble grasping the doorknob, and it took her a minute to open the door as quietly as possible. Brownish yellow light filtered through the blinds, illuminating the blanket-covered mass on the sofa that was Artemis. Holly's lips flickered up a bit as she began to make her way to the kitchen, desperate for a glass of water to rid the weighted, useless feeling of her tongue, but was stopped when she saw light shining out of the bathroom door. She sighed, mentally scolding the sleeping Artemis for wasting energy, and reached out to open the door.

She was met with a rather unexpected scene.

Artemis's head shot up when she stepped into the bathroom, and she froze at the same time he did; his eyes were wild and ringed with bruise-like shadows, his face pale and a little twisted with pain, his shoulders tensing a bit when he saw her, his toes curling over the side of the bathtub. He looked positively like a figurative deer in the headlights, but that wasn't what distracted Holly.

Her head, previously made heated and slow by the drug, snapped fully back to reality when she saw the blood running down his legs, and the razor blade in his hand.

There was stillness and silence for a moment more before Holly let him have it. "What the _hell_ is this, Artemis?" she yelled, disregarding the thin walls that separated them from their neighbors; at that moment, she didn't really care. All that mattered was the blood slipping over his feet and down the side of the bathtub.

Artemis stood quickly, flinging the blade into the sink, where it hit with a sharp pinging sound, small flecks of blood splattering the side. "Holly, calm down. I can explain," he said, reaching out for her, but his hands were slapped away and Holly, with her opium-wrecked nervous system, stumbled into the wall.

"You can explain?" she hissed, glaring venomously at him. "You can _explain_? I don't want to hear some half-assed explanation, Artemis Fowl. I want a real, honest, goddamn good explanation reason for mutilating yourself without telling me."

"You wouldn't have let me if you had known."

"Of course not!" Holly shouted, her hands shooting out to shake his shoulders but instead hitting his chest, knocking him back a step. She adapted to the change, her fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt, pulling his face very close to hers. "You shouldn't have done it in the first place!"

"I had to, Holly. What —"

"You _had _to. Right. Isn't that what they all say?" Her eyes shed a bit of anger, cluing him in to the desperation clawing around inside her. "What is it in you that hurts in you enough to make you turn to physical pain instead of turning to _me_? I thought you were over this, Artemis. No more secrets, remember? I thought you were going to trust me, I thought —"

"_Listen to me_!" Artemis commanded, cutting her off in mid speech. He stared directly into her eyes. "I am not into self mutilation, Holly, but everyone who lives a normal life has a few scars." He looked down to his leg, which, upon closer inspection, Holly found sported two cuts, one deep and short on his knee, the other thin and fairly long, curling around his ankle. "I have had a bodyguard since my birth," he said. "Aside from when my mother pushed me through a window in her insanity, I have never had an opportunity to gather a collection of scars, especially not when you would heal me. All this is is me sinking a little more into my role; I have a story for each little scar. Please, do _not _forget that I am doing this to keep you safe." His eyes raised from the floor, connecting with hers once more. "This is the only time, Holly. I promise. No more after this."

Holly wrenched from his grip, seething. "You kept this from me," she said, glaring at the blood staining the side of the bathtub. "I don't care if it was to help your identity develop or because of some deep pain inside you, but you can't make decisions like this on your own." Her eyes flicked from the bathtub to his frozen face, fighting for focus a bit before settling on his eyes. "We can't do this is you don't trust, Artemis."

"If _we _don't trust," he reminded her.

She made a small sound of disbelief in the back of her throat and turned on her heel, stumbling a bit before making her way out the door and into the kitchen, her body calling desperately for water. She filled up a glass with tap water, conscious as she stared out into the living room that there were no footsteps following her, only running water in the bathroom and her own labored breathing.

Holly wasn't sure how long it was until she fell asleep, but she woke up to a dry mouth a very bright kitchen and realized when she looked at the clock that it was midday. She groaned, sitting up; she had a slight headache from the convoluted high the night prior, and realized that as she rose that a blanket covered her. _Artemis_, she thought, a bit angrily, pushing the blanket off and rising to her feet, surveying the sunlit apartment with a grim face before walking briskly to the bathroom and observing the pristine room with distain.

_4:00_, a Post-It note stuck to the mirror read, and Holly snatched it down, crumpling it angrily before tossing into the small trash can in the corner.

* * *

It was very apparent to Artemis that Honor was wasting away; her cheekbones and wrists slowly grew more prominent, haunted bruise-like circles blooming under her bloodshot eyes. He had known her for little more than a month, but it was enough to know just how uncharacteristic is was for her to sit, smoking cigarette after cigarette, in the alleyway during break.

Across from her, Two-bit pumped away at a joint, staring lazily at the brick wall Artemis was leaning against, staring blankly at the opening to alleyway. It was 4:12. Holly wasn't going to show.

"Bitch, it's cold," Two-bit mumbled, stubbing out the half-inch of marijuana he had left to go. "I don't know about you two freaks, but I'm going inside." He stood, squinting toward the alley opening. "What're you looking at, Jack?"

"Nothing. Just the snow."

Two-bit opened his mouth and tilted his head back in time to catch a huge, clumped snowflake on his tongue. "That," he said, "is how you live in this damn city." He nodded to Artemis, snapped in front of Honor's unfocused eyes, which glanced at him reproachfully before returning to her feet, and headed into the back of Magnolia, slamming the door behind him. Artemis took his eyes away from the street beyond the alley, looking at the thin girl in front of him instead.

Honor was not what he would call pretty in any way, but there was something underneath that mass of fading pink hair and long nose that captured Artemis. It could have been her eyes; they reminded him of himself, thinking, thinking, plotting, plotting.

"Honor."

Honor started a bit, interrupting the rhythm of the smoke flowing from her mouth, and stared, a bit blank, at him.

"Let me help you."

Honor opened and closed her purple-painted lips, and then looked away, bringing the cigarette to her lips. She shook her head, her washed-out pink hair falling in front of her face.

"I know it's your brother. What's he on?"

She stubbed her cigarette out on the dumpster next to her, standing and trying to walked past him, but her grabbed her thin arm, forcing her to face him. They stared each other down, and then her head fell limply forward and hit his shoulder.

"Please," she whispered. "I just need him to get better."

Artemis hesitated; he should have thought it through better. Getting this involved with someone was a dangerous thing. To connect to someone while on the run was stupid at best. Helping them was twice as worse.

But then she looked up at him.

_Her eyes,_ he thought desperately. _Oh, God, her eyes._

Because, somehow, he had never noticed that her eyes were the same gray as his mother's. And they were gazing, watery and pleading, up at him. He felt his mouth open slightly, a slight pain in his chest throbbed through his limbs. The young woman standing in front of him was not his mother, but the desolate, imploring look she was giving him with those _eyes_...

"Yes," he found himself saying, an answer to her unstated question. "We'll go over to your place after work. We'll take him to a hospital."

She shook her head vehemently. "No hospitals. It'll go on his permanent record and we don't have the money."

"You want to do it _yourself?_"

"I have to." She wrapped her arms around his waste, squeezing him tightly with her skinny arms. "Thank you, Jack. You have no idea." She smiled, tiredly, at him before turning and walking slowly back into the building. Artemis stared after her for a moment before stomping the snow off of his shoes and stepping in after her.

As soon as he closed the door, Holly stepped away from the corner of the alleyway, scowling bitterly before walking back to the subway entrance, trying not to cry out lest the furious tears freeze on her face.


	14. Chapter 13

**Good lord, I am ashamed of myself. I do believe that it's taken me two weeks to update. I may justify myself with schoolwork — unfortunately, I had mad Pre-Cal and biology exams on the same day, as well as a play to memorize, theory paper to write, research paper to write, 44-page magazine layout to finalize, and detention twice for pissing around in class. So... my humble apologies, to all of you who have PMed me asking where I went, and also to those of you who didn't. I absolutely hate it when people don't update, and I've gone and done it myself. **

**Thank you for waiting.  
**

**CONTENT: drug allusions, severe language, slight sexual content**

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* * *

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Chapter 13: To Forgive

"It's heroin," Honor said, her breath fogging in the echoing stairwell. "I don't know where the hell he's been getting it, but I'm gone half of the day at work, and when I come home he's usually high." She glanced at him as he involuntarily shivered, pulling his coat tighter around his body. "The heater's broken, sorry." She looked back up the staircase, her feet skirting the sleeping homeless man tucked into the concrete corner. "Just... when you see him... I think you'll understand. He's so sick, Jack. I think he's been shooting up twice a day now."

"How old is he, Honor?"

Honor breathed out slowly through her nose, the air steaming in the cold and rising up. She glanced quickly at him and then looked away, biting her lower lip.

"Honor?"

"Twelve."

Artemis felt his stomach drop a little bit, and couldn't restrain the small sound of disbelief he made in the back of his throat. "He's _twelve?"_

"The thing you have to understand, Jack," she said, "is that our mom died when he was ten. My dad died when I was two and nobody knows who Gray's father is, and since I had just turned eighteen he got stuck with me. Despite what the government says, they don't actually _care _about us people who can't pay our taxes." She stopped at the door leading to the hallway of the fifth floor but didn't open it. "He has Tourette's syndrome, and so when he was moved to a new school he couldn't make friends." She leaned against the wall, closing her eyes. "They called him retard. They made him eat dirt. They beat the _shit _out of him one day, and he was crying so, so hard. I was eighteen; I didn't know what to do, so I gave him pot to calm him down. He said he wanted to be home-schooled because school was just so awful for him, and after a while I decided to let him. He's so _smart_, Jack. I thought he could handle teaching himself from books while I worked. But apparently he found my stash."

"Jesus."

"He started smoking a lot, and since he seemed calmer and his ticks would go away, I pretended not to notice. But then I found needles in the trash can." She opened her eyes and looked furiously up at the bottom of the next staircase. "He started taking heroin when he was eleven because he hurt so much. He couldn't feel when he was high. He started once a week or so, and then progressed." Her eyes flicked to him, those familiar gray eyes burning intently into his. "Twice a _day_, Jack. I can't get him to stop. I can't take him to the hospitals; they would take him away from me. I have no money to pay for treatment. Hell, I don't know where _he _gets the money, but there's nothing I can do to stop him from getting it. I'm always at work when he meets with his supplier." She took his hands, squeezing them tightly. Artemis instinctively squeezed back. "I just... I need a tiny break from being the adult. I've helped him all I can, and now I need someone to help _me_."

"I'll do my best, Honor, but..." Artemis sighed, letting go of her hands and pushing the door open. "I don't know. You may end up having to hand him over to the government if I can't do anything."

"I know," she whispered. "I just hope to God I don't have to."

She led him down a narrow hall with moth-eaten, peeling wallpaper. There were cheap brown wooden doors ever thirty feet or so, marking the homes of tenants. She led him four of these doors down, and then chose the door on the left, sticking a key in the lock before worming her arm in and undoing the chain, which jangled as it fell down and hit the other side of the wall. She then opened the door fully, allowing Artemis into the tiny, dingy apartment that reeked of mold and dust. Honor shot him an apologetic glance that he shot down with a wave of his hand, peering into the gloomy dark of the apartment, noting the clumsily blacked-out windows. Honor followed his gaze and frowned.

"Damn it," she whispered to herself, and then strode toward the windows and ripped down the blankets that covered them, letting artificial city light flow into the room.

"I told you not to do that, Gray." She spoke with her head turned in profile to Artemis, a furious glare across her features.

There was a low grunt, and then a raspy, horrifyingly young voice. "Fuck off. It's too bright."

"It wouldn't be so bright if you weren't a damn addict." She disappeared around a wall, and Artemis followed her in, quietly closing the door behind him. He made it into the tiny living room, which, when lit only from the outside lights, looked like a filthy pit of despair. It didn't take him long to find Gray.

He was smaller than Artemis had expected him to be. Just about over four feet, the boy was curled up in a ball, his arms and legs like sticks, his ribs showing clearly through his tight shirt, his face emaciated and skull-like. What skin Artemis could see was a sickly yellow, his eyes sunken into his skull as he glared at his sister, his overgrown ashy blonde hair breaking the intensity of his scowl.

"Why can't you just leave me the hell alone?"

Honor ignored him, flipping on the lone lamp in the room, making Gray flinch and dive for the beaten couch, stuffing his face into a cushion. Honor pulled him out, and despite his week writhing, was able to sit him down in the middle of the room, holding his shoulders down so he couldn't move.

"Be still, Gray."

"Get the hell off of me!"

She took his chin, forcing him to look up at Artemis, who, he was ashamed to admit, stood shocked in the doorway, gazing with enrapture at this corpse-like, ruined child on the dirty carpet of the living room floor.

"Gray, this is Jack," Honor said, and he bit at her hand. She swiped it away and his yellow teeth clicked audibly even over the constant noise of the city outside. "He's a friend of mine. He's going to help me help you."

Gray gave Artemis a fiercely black look and spat at him. Honor smacked him on the back of the head, snapping his neck forward.

"That was _rude_, Gray."

"I don't need his help! I don't need help at all!"

Artemis found himself speaking. "Really? Have you looked in a mirror lately?"

Gray kicked out a leg in Artemis's direction, his bare foot striking the ground ten feet from Artemis. His eyes were gray as well, reminding Artemis vividly of the madness that had raged through his mother's body, causing her to act so much like this child here... howling madly, cursing him, trying weakly to cause him physical pain. He slowly approached Gray, eyes trained at the hair just above his fevered eyes, palms forward, muscles relaxed, and then knelt down in front of him.

"Gray, my name is Jack."

"She already said what your name was," he replied venomously, staring with intense hatred at Artemis. "I'm not a fucking retard."

"I'm not here to hurt you," Artemis continued smoothly, as calm as if he hadn't been interrupted. "All I want is for you to listen for a little bit." He fully sat down, placing himself in a defenseless position so as to calm Gray's subconscious. The boy in front of him kept his furious face, but his eyes didn't move off of Artemis, which was encouraging.

"I'm going to ask you some questions. Will you answer them?"

"_Fuck_ no."

"Did you start heroin because somebody told you it made you feel good?"

"Go the hell away!"

Artemis persevered. "Do you keep doing it because you forget about your mother when you're high, or are you addicted?"

Gray bared his rotting teeth. "I'm not addicted. I could stop if I wanted to."

"Really? So if I got you to want to stop doing heroin, you could stop immediately?"

"Go blow yourself." Gray stopped glaring to cough violently, a horrible, chunky sounding cough intermixed with gasping wheezes as he fought for oxygen. Honor looked only slightly worried — this had obviously happened before — and so Artemis let him finish before continuing on.

"You know, Gray," he began, and the boy looked back up, panting weakly. "A heroin addict has collapsed veins, which can lead to dire heart problems and infections. You could get liver disease, or other organ diseases. You're highly susceptible to pneumonia, and due to your trouble breathing I would say that you're already infected with stage one."

He realized that Honor was looking at him with wide eyes, and felt his head swim momentarily; in the heat of the moment, he had digressed from Jack Dunbar and reverted to Artemis Fowl. _Don't lecture, damn it_, he reminded himself. _You're not that smart._

"If you keep doing this, Gray," he said softly, looking the disturbed child straight in the eyes, "you will die."

Gray continued his stare for a few moments more before snapping violently at Artemis's fake nose, his rancid breath and the immanent danger of his teeth making Artemis reel back. Honor grabbed him by the hair, pulling his head back, but the boy's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, crumpling into her arms. Honor held him, and Artemis lowered his eyes to his fingers, which rested on his knees.

"I'm sorry."

"It happens all the time." She dragged him to the couch, brushing his hair out of his eyes, her fingers lingering on his forehead before her eyes flicked back up to Artemis, the corners of her mouth turning down. "How did you do that? It was amazing."

"Talk to him?" She nodded, and he shrugged slowly, trying appear nonchalant. "I don't know. I just did."

"You just... did, huh?"

He shrugged again, and turned away, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Small burst of... smart-itude, I guess."

Honor snorted. "Yeah, right. Thanks, Jack."

"See you tomorrow?"

She nodded, smiling a grim smile, and turned back to her younger brother, who lay as if dead on the sofa. Artemis took his leave and let himself out, plodding down the stairway, slowly musing over the mistake he had made.

_Smart-itude? Honestly? That is the sorriest excuse I have ever come up with for a slip like that._

He opened the door to Honor's building, slipping into the icy, unforgiving night of New York City.

* * *

Sick anticipation clawed in his stomach as he unlocked the apartment door, his face numb from cold and his legs aching from standing for an hour straight. Inside, he knew she was waiting, bitterly furious and ready to lash out at him. Artemis Fowl was a very articulate being, but when Holly unleashed her anger on him he quite often found himself helpless.

He found her sitting on the windowsill, her feet curled up, her eyes trained out the window, a bowl of salad in her lap. She didn't turn her head, but he knew she knew he was there.

"Holly," he said, once a few uncomfortable minutes had passed. She didn't turn. He sighed, dropping his bag by the couch, and walked slowly over to her, sinking to the floor once he reached the window. Her jaw was tight, her eyes trained out the window and away from him.

There was the thick, awkward silence between them that, for some reason, he found so hard to break through. His mouth refused to open, his tongue refused to form letters, his vocal chords refused to vibrate, his lungs refused to push air up to make the sound.

It was Holly who finally broke it. "You're late. It's midnight."

"I know. There was a homeless man, he —"

"Jumped in front of the subway and stopped up rush hour, I know. I checked the news." She glared at the frosted glass of the window as if it had done her great wrong. "There's always an excuse, isn't there?"

"Holly, I texted you telling you I was going to be late tonight."

"Helping Honor with her sick brother instead of coming home and talking things out with me."

He stared at her, not asking how she knew about his visit with Honor, not putting up a fight.

"Last night, Artemis... I can't even _tell _you how lied to I felt. You left me vulnerable and hurting, and then when I found you cutting yourself in the bathroom... God, I thought we were over this trust issue, Artemis! I thought you had let everything go, and I thought that you were ready to handle trusting me, but apparently we weren't on the same page because you still didn't tell me anything of what you were going to do. And it's always been this way, hasn't it?" She suddenly stood, the bowl of salad shattering on the floor by Artemis's legs, vinaigrette slowly seeping over his knee. "Every single time we have to save the damn world, or not get caught by someone, or work out any sort of little problem there is _always _something you don't tell me."

"Holly, I'm sorry —"

"No!" she yelled, cutting him off. "Don't tell me you're sorry. It doesn't fix anything, Artemis. You lied to me. You lied and that's all."

He found himself standing as well, rising above her. "I made a mistake in not telling you, Holly, but you would not have let me go on with it if I had."

"Of course not." She glared at him, her fists curling. "Why would I let my best friend in the world cut his skin open? It was completely unnecessary."

"Actually —"

"No! There was absolutely _no _reason that you should have gone through with it!" She snatched the front of his sweater, yanking his face down inches from hers. At that moment, staring into her snarl, Artemis was truly aware of just how powerful Holly was.

"Being with you, I thought, was a good thing, but obviously you weren't ready to handle it," Holly growled, dangerously quiet, into his ear. "I don't know what your issue is with trusting me, but this _has_ to stop. Do I make myself clear?"

He was silent. Then: "Yes."

Her fingers slowly uncurled and he was released from her clutches as she strode into the bathroom, slamming the door. After a moment, Artemis could hear the shower running.

Salad, vinaigrette, and shards of the bowl littered the floor, and Artemis was left alone to dutifully clean it up. He was on his knees wiping the last of the cleaning spray off of the woods when Holly opened the door to the bathroom, her face red from the heat of the spray, her wet hair dripping down her T-shirt.

"Well, would you look at that," she said dully. "Artemis Fowl cleaning something. The nerve."

Artemis breathed in deeply before swiping up all of the paper towels and standing. "Holly," he said quietly, and this time he was not stopped. "You made your point, and you were justified in doing so. But I feel that there has been miscommunication between us that could have easily been stopped." Holly turned around to fire off a reply, but he beat her to it. "Please don't interrupt, Holly. Let me speak." He made his way into the kitchen, throwing the paper towels into the trash along with the salad and bowl. "Of course, I could have avoided it by telling you what I planned to do, but you could have avoided it by staying calm and letting me explain. All I was trying to do was dig a little bit deeper into my character, and though what I did was rash and harmful, I got the physical effect I was aiming for, and all that has to happen now is healing." He rolled up one pant leg, propping his foot on the counter. "This," he explained, pointing to the short, deep cut on his knee, "will be from climbing a chain link fence on the Fourth of July when I was twelve. This," he continued, gesturing to the thin cut circling his ankle, "will be from my Labrador Hank when I was sixteen." He pulled his pant leg down. "They are not serious cuts, but that does not change the fact that I lied to you."

"No. It doesn't."

"I am sincerely sorry, Holly. Please understand that as well as you can." He looked down at the floor, feeling honestly regretful. "I have always had problems with truth, especially when it came to my schemes." When he looked back up again, his face was the picture of sincerity, but, as Holly knew, looks could be deceiving, especially when it came to Artemis. "I will try my best never to lie to you again. Will you forgive me?"

She looked away, her face a cold mask while inside she contemplated his apology. He watched her chew her cheek, slowly mulling over what he had said, and then an angry spark lit up in her eyes, making him internally flinch when she looked up at him.

"You said you would try your best, not that you wouldn't lie to me again."

"I can't promise that. Minds like mind are known to make split-second decisions."

Holly rolled her eyes and snorted, and when the corners of her lips fought to keep from rising into a smirk Artemis knew he was mostly, if not completely, forgiven. "There _are _no other minds like yours, Mud Boy."

She walked back into the living room and he followed her, watching her bend down to her backpack, which sat by the bedroom door, and pull out a couple of books, taking them and settling on the couch. He trailed her, peeking over her shoulder as she opened the book.

"Sign language?"

"I've been wanting to learn it for a while," she admitted, and he tentatively sat next to her, curling his legs underneath his body. "The Gift of Tongues doesn't teach you to sign. Just to speak."

"But you don't have the Gift anymore."

She kicked lightly at him. "I know that, stupid," she said, and he thought that perhaps he was not forgiven all the way.

"Stupid? Me?"

She sighed. "You've never been called that before, have you?"

"Of course not."

"Everyone should have to be called stupid at least once before they die. Now you've got yours out of the way and you can live peacefully for sixty more years."

"Peacefully? I doubt that." Artemis leaned forward, tapping a diagram of the sign language alphabet. "But why this? Why not Spanish, or French? An oral language would surely be of more use to you."

She sent him a withering look. "It's not about how useful it's going to be to me, Artemis," she said. "It's about doing something I've never done before. I guess, if you want to be frank, it's about self-gratification." She held up a hand, folding her middle and ring fingers down. "This is the only sign I know."

"Everyone knows that, Holly."

"I know. It's the first sign everyone learns, even if they're not learning sign language." She smiled slightly. "It's amazing to learn how to speak with your hands."

"How would you know? You haven't even learned it."

She raised her right hand, slowly staggering through the alphabet without looking at the diagram. "Even that, Artemis..." She scooted closer to herself, chilled in the drafty apartment. "I feel connected to people who are disconnected from us." She raised an eyebrow. "Besides, there are plenty of deaf people in this city. Haven't you seen them?"

"Of course."

"So it _is _useful." At this point she chose to begin ignoring him and brought her book in front of her face, drilling herself on the alphabet. Artemis sat watching her feet while she worked, her toes curling whenever she frustrated herself. It was peaceful, at last, between them. Perhaps there were a few strands of doubt and anger between them, but he felt more connected to Holly since he had in the hotel room in New Jersey. He leaned his head on the arm of the couch, closing his eyes to the dim light of the nighttime apartment, sleeping for the first time since the day he had lay in bed with Holly, exploring her past through her scars. It seemed weeks ago, though it had only been a few hours over a day. He was so tired... If he could just close his eyes for one moment before putting the lotion on Holly and taking off his make-up...

He woke to sunlight streaming into his face. He shot up, panicked, his hands flying to his nose only to find that the mold had been carefully peeled off his face and the make-up removed, a blanket wrapped around his legs. He took a deep breath, standing slowly, and stretched, his joints popping from his night on the couch.

"Morning," came a voice behind him, and he turned to see Holly sitting against the wall behind him, his fingers typing away on his laptop.

"What time is it?"

"8:30. I was just about to wake you up." She kept her eyes trained on the computer screen, her normal blue and brown eyes colored white by the screen. "I took your nose off for you, in case you hadn't guessed."

"I did, thank you." He looked away; all comfort from the night before seemed to have evaporated. "Did you put on your lotion?"

"Mm-hm." She kept her eyes on the screen for a moment more before snapping the computer shut, groaning softly as she stretched her legs and arms out. "And I took a very thorough shower this morning."

"It stinks, doesn't it? The opium?"

"Yup." She stood, walking past him into the kitchen, reaching up and ruffling his hair as he passed. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Banana?"

"That is horrible grammar," he replied, following her. She scowled at him, tossing him a greenish banana and opening one for herself.

"Don't be a smart-ass."

"I can hardly help myself."

She scoffed, stuffing the banana in her mouth. He shook his head at her ill manners and handed her a napkin, which she took with a glower.

The rest of the morning passed easily. Artemis helped Holly clean up the kitchen and dressed slowly, staring absently out the window in thought. He was out the door by ten, having hesitantly kissed Holly goodbye and successfully applied his make-up, leaving him down in the belly of the subway by five after the hour.

At eleven he was well into business, taking orders, checking tables, and smoothly carrying platters from restaurant to kitchen and vice versa. As always, work bustled by, and by four his feet were aching as he huddled next to Honor in the alleyway, smoke curling from her cigarette.

"How is he?"

She shrugged, her eyes puffy and tired. "He hasn't woken up since last night. He was still asleep when I left."

Artemis nodded grimly, watching his toes as they tapped out a rhythm on the ground. The silence between them was awkward, a sort of tense snapping between them. Honor's feet kicked the snow beneath them, making a rhythm to match his own, and they found themselves tapping out a two-man symphony in the alleyway, barely audible over the city traffic.

Honor spoke suddenly. "He's coughed up bloody mucus while he was asleep. Is that bad?"

Artemis stopped tapping his feet and raised his eyebrows. "Very bad. He needs the hospital."

"I can't take him to the hospital." Honor flicked the butt of her cigarette into the snow and lit up a new one, her eyes half closed. "They'll take him away from me." Smoke curled away from her lips, mingling with her cold-steamed breath. "I don't think you could tell from our interactions yesterday, but I love him so much. He's my little brother. He's all I have left."

Artemis stared at her; this girl, a sister forced into the position of a mother, mislead and troubled in a world where everyone was moving too fast to reach out and help her.

_Maybe_, he thought, _it's time for me to let go of my selfishness and help someone without my own personal gain._

"I have a friend from high school," he lied quickly. "He's a hacker. He can get the records changed so that you'll stay his legal guardian."

"I don't even want to _know_ how much that's gonna cost."

"None. I can get him to do it for free." _Artemis Fowl, you rascal._

Honor looked up at him, a sudden spark of hope in her expression. A spark after a month of horror. She had told him, while he was checking into work that day, that Gray had only started to fall hard shortly after he had arrived in New York. In the short span of a month he had gone from a troubled but mostly healthy boy to the living skeleton he was now. How she had managed, Artemis had no idea, but getting Gray into the hospital without the threat of the government taking him away seemed to light back a bit of the fire she had had when he had first met her.

"Thanks, Jack," she said, and it was accompanied by a small smile before she again flicked her cigarette butt into the snow and stomped her boots off on her way inside.

* * *

"You're back late again."

He looked up from his coat as he hung it on one of the nails poking out of the kitchen wall. "Though admittedly earlier than last night."

Holly shrugged, closing her sign language book and sliding off the kitchen counter. "Yeah, I guess. I got your message. The kid sounds sick."

"Very sick, unfortunately." Artemis rolled his head to the side, wincing slightly as his neck cracked. "There was quite a few problems at the hospital, but we got everything sorted out in the end."

Holly bit her lips, looking away.

"What?"

"Artemis... I'm glad your helping them and all, but..." She sighed, fingering the edge of her shirt. "Isn't it a bit risky? Why endanger us by getting close to them? It seems kind of illogical to me, and I thought you would have seen it as well."

He drew in a deep breath, slow trying to arranging his words in his head. "It's hard to explain, Holly."

She watched him silently, her fake muddy brown eyes burning into his even through contact lenses, and Artemis felt himself beginning to speak.

"I feel that I've been slightly off-kilter for a few months, since a few weeks before we found you in London. I've been detached... Watching life from the sidelines, if you may. I've spent many, many hours thinking about what was wrong with me, and it was so hard to come to a conclusion. And after all my musing I came to believe that my mind has been socially deprived."

"But you have me now, don't you?"

Artemis pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat. "You're one person, Holly. I certainly do not mean to be rude or spiteful, but one person is not enough. I am a fully mature mind, Holly. In the past I could get away with just having Butler for a friend because my mind was more than enough of a companion for itself. Then when you and the rest of our magical affiliates became... not friends, per se, but comrades... my mind began to recognize what it had been missing. When that was all taken away months ago, my mind was knocked off balance. It lacked people. Not one person, Holly. More."

"I still don't understand why you had to dig yourself into this, Artemis," Holly said, pacing the kitchen. "Just think, Artemis. They could come knocking on the door at two in the morning asking for help, and you won't have your makeup on, or one day your nose mold will be knocked off, or maybe they'll notice that your freckles aren't in the exact same place as the day before." She stopped at the kitchen table, her hands flat on the surface, her face a bit bitter. "This could expose us. I don't mean to be selfish, but we're doing this for my protection — so that I won't be _caught _— right?"

"And also because I was beginning to understand then that it was quite difficult to live without you," Artemis whispered, his eyes locked on hers.

There was a fragile, stunned silence that hit the kitchen then. Holly blinked, reeling her head back a bit, her lips parting slightly in surprise. Artemis maintained his stare, willing her to understand what he found impossible to put into words. How he tried to help them because he really had discovered something important; casual friends outside of business or academics. Normal people who needed someone. And he could do it. He could help them, because that was what friends were supposed to do. He honestly _liked _Honor, and beneath the broken exterior of Gray's body, he could see a lonely, hurting, innocent child. He let himself slip from powerful, brilliant, imposing Artemis Fowl to the quirky, easygoing, casual Jack, and he had found that when he let himself step off of his high horse, people came to him and he liked them. He liked most of the people he worked with, and he liked the people he saw on the streets and the subway. He liked his neighbors, and his boss. He liked them because they were real, honest-to-God people. All his life he had lived an upped version of reality. And now that he tried it, he found that real life, when taken with some caution, was not too bad at all.

Holly stepped back, running a hand through her hair, the blond strands crossing in front of her face. "God, Artemis."

He lowered his gaze, still unsure of whether or not she had understood. He felt his stomach clench in anxiety as she stepped around the table and approached him, stopping to his left, a hand reaching hesitantly to touch his face. He looked up as she bent down, and her lips brushed against his cheek, her other hand slipping down his arm, grazing his ribcage. Artemis felt a strange, alien rush in his body, throbbing through his veins and making his chest heat up, anxiety turning to anticipation. With easy movements he pulled Holly into his lap, and as she sat saddle-style on his legs, her lips moved from his cheek to his mouth.

"My God, Artemis Fowl," she whispered into his mouth. "You are so hard to love."


	15. Chapter 14

**You know, I just realized that I could sort of end the fic right here, but where's the fun in that? There are so many loose ends to tie up... and I have my plans for the finale. I know this chapter is early — what, me? Updating early? With school? Sigh... thank you, Thanksgiving Break.  
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**I've been asked by a few people to do a one shot of this story that does _not _belong under the T rating. I may oblige, I may not. I'm in no hurry. But this chapter — whether a one shot goes after it or not — is for Kitsune Heart, since she's been griping and moaning at me the longest.  
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**CONTENT: sexual content**

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* * *

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Chapter 14: Communication**  
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"_What do you mean, you won't take him?"_

_Honor's gaze was fixed the stoic nurse behind the desk, her fingers clinging so tightly to the edge of the counter that her knuckles had gone bone white. Artemis's fingers lightly tapped the cool Formica of the counter, his eyes boring into the poor receptionist as well._

"_According to your bank statements, there is no way you can pay for his rehabilitation," she replied coolly, and, to her credit, professionally. "There is no proof of insurance either. If you can't pay, then he cannot be treated."_

_Honor slammed a fist down on the counter, which shook the entire desk and knocked over a cup of pens. "So if the previous president of the United States came in here dirt poor and asked you to save his life, would you help him?"_

_There was a flicker of uncertainty over the nurse's face before her expression became stony and she said, quite firmly, "No."_

"_I doubt that."_

_At this point, Artemis reached to touch Honor's arm, and she looked around at him angrily. _

"_Give me a moment," he murmured. She stared at him for a moment before turning on her heel and stalking off, seething. Artemis watched her carefully for a moment and then turned back to the exasperated nurse before him._

_It took only a minute and a half to persuade the nurse to enter Gray into the hospital computer.

* * *

_

Domovoi Butler was woken that morning by the sound of someone banging on his front door.

It took him a moment to register the sound; he lay there, surrounded in a haze of sleep and cursing himself for not having a faster reaction. Perhaps he really was getting old, but it was no excuse for shirking his duty. He pulled a shirt on, letting the loose, threadbare fabric billow around his chest, and padded quickly to the front of his dingy apartment. All that could be seen out of the peephole was the top of a brown head, and so Butler left the chain in when he opened the door. Before he could look around it to see who was there, a long, slender hand flashed through the crack in the door, the bone-like fingers undoing the chain, and a thin figure slid through, dodging around the sleep-fogged man. Butler reached toward his hip for a gun that was not there, and then whirled around to face the man who had easily broken into his apartment, only to see him sliding down the wall to put his head in his knees.

_Artemis has brown hair now,_ Butler remembered, and bent to pull the head out of the knees. Sure enough, Artemis's face, hidden beneath layers of molds and make-up, peered up at him, his eyes searching Butler's blearily.

"Are you all right?" Butler asked automatically. "Is Holly okay?"

"I suppose," Artemis replied, reaching out a hand, and Butler pulled him to stand. "I apologize if I woke you. I just need advice."

"I'm flattered that you'd come to me, Artemis, but it was a dangerous move."

"I have an alibi," Artemis said, carding a hand through his hair, grimacing at the length; the hair at the back of his neck was now touching his shoulders. "Supposedly I'm window shopping in Soho."

"That's a weak alibi."

"But fairly believable," he said. "Can we talk?"

"Of course," Butler replied, nodding toward the living space of the apartment, and he and Artemis made their way into the bland living room, decorated only by one pale orange wall that looked like it had been painted twenty years ago. "It's been a while."

"The longest I've been without you, old friend."

"But not the longest I've been without you."

"That's quite true." Artemis sat slowly onto an old cloth couch, not even bothering to wrinkle his nose in disgust; hours on the New York streets had robbed him of his pompous expectations in material things. "You have changed so much."

Butler raised one corner of his lips as he sat; it was true. His skin hung off of his skull, mottled and covered with spidery broken veins and bruises, and he had lost some of his bulk, his muscles very much reduced, his body hairless and beaten. "It's mostly make-up," he said. "I use so much of it that Juliet gave me a more permanent kind that I have to renew about once every three days."

"I must say, it is chillingly odd to see you so thin. And with no eyebrows."

"You didn't come here to talk about my physique," Butler replied softly, and something in Artemis's expression changed a bit, betraying how uncomfortable and uncertain he was, and if Butler was not mistaken, a bit of fear lingered under that expression as well. His charge shifted on the couch, clasping his hands in his lap, and silence fell. They sat there for a few minutes, as Artemis sorted out the words in his head, and Butler waited patiently, as he always had. Eventually, Artemis looked up.

"Last night," he said, his voice taking on a slightly nervous tone, "Holly and I very nearly had sex."

Butler blinked. Artemis stared him down, as if daring him to laugh or contradict him, but Butler had other things on his mind. He was glad Artemis had found someone, finally – it was something he had worried about, when his charge had been just a little boy, whether or not he could find someone to love – a little sad to be letting go, and perhaps a bit jealous – not over the sex, surely – but just over the fact that someone else was growing closer to Artemis than he was. It took him a moment before a small smile split his features. "Congratulations," he said.

"Is it?" Artemis asked. "I don't know, Butler, I want to so _badly _that I almost don't understand it. I know, me, not understanding something. It's nearly inconceivable."

"You always had a hard time understanding what love _was _as a child," Butler said, and Artemis scowled a bit. "But you said 'nearly.' Why nearly?"

"I… ended it," Artemis said. "I just… how could it work, Butler? Holly and I? We shouldn't be doing this. It's wrong and we both know it, yet we just keep spinning faster and faster into this relationship." He suddenly stood, pacing back and forth in front of the couch, wringing his hands a bit. "Humans have 23 chromosomes. Elves have 24, an extra for the magic and the wings that evolution saw fit to remove. If we… God, Butler, if we produced a child, who knows the catastrophic effects that it could have on its mind and body? The monosomy could destroy its entire system."

"Use protection."

"It's not foolproof," Artemis replied, more sharply than he meant to. "There's always that risk that there could be a problem and she would get pregnant anyway."

Butler stood as well, capturing his charge by the shoulders and looking him deep in the eyes. "But what is life without risks? You know that, Artemis. You always have."

Artemis opened and closed his mouth speechlessly, and then opened it again. "I… I can't… I …" He closed his mouth once more, letting his forehead fall to rest limply on Butler's shoulder, one hand coming up to wrap under his bodyguard's arm and lay on his back. Butler wrapped his arms around his charge, who, despite his growth, was still a child in his eyes, and gently crushed Artemis to his chest. Through their shirts, each could feel the other's heartbeat, and as time passed it grew to be one of the most personal moments they had ever had in their lives. As the minutes shot by, Butler became aware that he was unconsciously stroking Artemis's hair, and Artemis that he was breathing deeply just to take in the familiar masculine smell of protection and care that surrounded Butler.

"You're growing up so fast," Butler whispered, a bit mortified to find that his voice was a little thick. "Just yesterday we were standing on a street corner in Spain and you were telling me how much you hated puberty."

Artemis chuckled lowly into his neck.

"I'm glad you came to me for this," he continued. "I'm glad you trust me. That means that I've been doing my job well." He ignored Artemis's snort and pulled slowly out of the embrace, smoothing Artemis's hair back down. "And you're right. This is something you need to talk about. Sit down."

Artemis once again lowered himself into the couch, and Butler into the chair.

"The thing you have to understand, Artemis, is that sex is a beautiful thing. When you love someone, it becomes something one degree under an obsession to have them fully exposed to you. You _want _to see them without clothes; you_ want _to be as intimate with them as possible." A slight flush spread over Artemis's cheeks, but he remained silent and listened. "And you know that it's a simple instinctual urge; not even human, but animal. With humans, however, the desire is mounted to an entirely new level. It's not just a brash instinct to make as many babies as you can –"

"Usually," Artemis muttered.

"Usually," Butler amended, "But it's love. Do you understand? It doesn't matter what race or what gender or what age they are if two people are in love. It just doesn't, and I think that soon you'll come to realize that, because you _do _love Holly, don't you?"

Artemis looked down at his shoes, his hair hiding his face, and swallowed loudly, avoiding the question. "But…" He sighed, and looked up, his eyes a bit desperate and drilling an hole right through Butler's heart. "I'm… I just have this… feeling, I suppose, that I would be defiling her in some way."

"Is Holly a virgin, Artemis?"

Artemis opened his mouth to reply and realized that he had no idea. He settled for a shrug. "It's not like it's an easy question to ask."

"Sure it is, with someone you trust."

Artemis screwed up his face, looking like an oversized disgruntled child. "Are… are you a… _virgin_, Butler?"

His bodyguard laughed a little. "To be honest, no, I'm not." He raised his eyebrows at Artemis's slightly shocked expression. "What kind of life do you think I led before you came along?"

"Training... Russian Mafia... Assassinations..."

Butler huffed gently out of his nose, the corners of his lips curling up. "Yes, all that did happen, but once I dropped out of dealings with the Mafia I headed for Paris."

"Ah, yes, the city of love."

"Love indeed. Her name was Madeleine. She was two years younger than me — twenty-three and as innocent as a child — and I fell completely in love with her." He paused, allowing a small smile of remembrance to flicker over his lips, though there was a tinge of sadness in the air. "She died a year to the day after our first time. She was raped in a back alleyway and then cut into pieces."

A shiver ran down Artemis's spine.

"They never found her killer."

"I'm so sorry," Artemis whispered hoarsely, his mind traveling back to London, where Henry Thomas had attempted to assault Holly in return for getting her over the border. Who knew, with a man like that, what might have happened if Holly hadn't shocked his system with her last dregs of magic? She could have ended up like Madeleine, her body in pieces in a dark Paris alleyway.

Butler nodded in thanks. "It was years ago. I haven't had a moment to stop and be sad about it since. And if she hadn't been killed, I never would have been assigned to you. People like me aren't supposed to fall in love. I was a disgrace to my name. I went back to Madame Ko and begged her forgiveness." His eyes closed, and he rested his chin on his knuckles. "I have never told anyone this, Artemis — not even Juliet — but for two years I all but disappeared from the face of the earth. Those two years were spent returning myself to a stone state of mind in which I would feel nothing. When I was twenty-eight, I was informed that your mother was pregnant, and that another Butler was needed for when the baby would be born." He opened his eyes again, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "That baby was you. Madam Ko didn't think I was ready to go back out into the real world, but the moment I first saw you on the sonogram pictures I was determined to make sure that nothing would happen to you, and I think that my resolution was what convinced her to let me go." Butler's eyes turned soft as he gazed upon his charge, lost and confused in front of him. "Over the years I've come to realize that it's because you were my little Madeleine."

Astonishment flashed across Artemis's face. "You... feel like that... about me?"

Butler shook his head. "No. I love you, Artemis, but as a father loves his son." He reached across the gap between them, capturing Artemis's slender hands in his rough, calloused palms. "You were my Madeleine because I realized that I would do anything to protect you and your innocence to make up for everything she lost." He squeezed the hands in his. "_That _is what love is."

Artemis bit his lower lip. "Thank you, old friend." He pulled his slightly battered phone out of his back pocket and checked the time. "I'm going to be late for work. I must be on my way." He stood, shrugging his coat back on, and Butler rose as well, towering above Artemis.

"Take good care of yourself," he said gruffly. "Holly told you about our... communication method?"

Artemis raised an eyebrow, placing his hands in his coat pockets. "No, I do not believe she did."

Butler nodded, his brow furrowing a bit. "It's a gun I gave her. A .357 Magnum that I modified heavily so that it holds 10 bullets. I used some LEP hardware that you tweaked in your pre C Cube days, and had an affiliate of mine in the city put it together so that the number of shots will be recorded and transmitted to me, along with the location of the gun. One shots means it's not urgent but you need me to come get you, two means you need me sooner rather than later but you can manage, and three means you need me now. I had Juliet give it to Holly before she met you at your workplace."

"Rather clever of you."

"Thank you. Though I honestly hope you never have to use it." Butler cupped Artemis's face in his massive hands. "Please, stay safe, Artemis. You have no idea how worried it makes me to know that you're wandering all over this God forsaken city on your own." Artemis nodded, the movement causing Butler's hands to move slightly up and down. "Just be careful, and don't let your guard down."

"I will." Artemis wrapped his arms around Butler's waist and Butler around Artemis's bony shoulders. "I promise. Thank you, Domovoi. For everything."

"Always," Butler murmured into his hair, and then Artemis slipped from his grip and showed himself out the door, leaving Butler with a nagging feeling of loss deep in his stomach.

* * *

Holly found Artemis leaning against the rusting railing of the small balcony, looking pensively out into the surrounding city, his arms crossed on the bar. She approached the open door and started a bit; a fat cigar was hanging from his lips as his long, stealthy fingers tapped a sort of orchestra on his arm. Holly stepped onto the balcony beside him.

"You smoke?"

He looked lazily around to her, the lids of his eyes drooping slightly in the half light. "On occasion," he replied smoothly, returning to tracing the skyline with his eyes, his fingers halting their composition and taking the cigar brushing his lips as smoke curled out into the cold air. "A bad habit I picked up from my father."

She considered protesting but decided to accept it as a part of him, just like his criminal mind and weak physique. There were times where tolerance was the key to making their relationship work. "Fine," she said. "You can kiss _yourself_ tonight, though."

Artemis raised his eyebrows but said nothing, simply letting the smoke, warm against the cold air, curl around his lips. Holly leaned against the railing next to him, trying to figure out what he found so fascinating in the ever-present line of buildings. He refused to make conversation, taking great interest instead in the shapes the smoke made above his head.

"Look, Artemis, if this is because of last night —"

"Do you want to go ice skating?"

Holly looked slowly around at him, a skeptical expression on her face. "Ice skating? I've never heard of it. That just sounds like disaster waiting to happen."

Artemis sighed, stubbing the half-smoked cigar out on the edge of the railing, leaving ashes on the rusting black iron. "It's quite safe, as long as you stay on the edge. I did it once when I was six, and I seem to remember vaguely enjoying myself. Though Butler was very paranoid that day, as I seem to recall." He slipped past her, back into the warmth of their apartment, and she followed him into the kitchen, watching as he ran water over the previously lit part of his cigar before he dumped it in the trashcan.

"That is _so _random, Artemis. What's gotten into you?"

He ran his hands under the tap, watching the water part around his numb fingers. "The way I see it," he said, "is that we need to talk things out. A lot of things." His eyes flicked up to hers, but when he saw that she was looking intently at him he returned to watching his fingers. "I think that we should try it out in a more casual setting than we have before. Rockefeller Center — a little cliche, perhaps, but charming — is a very large, populated, warm, and generally well-received place. I also think that if we were given something to concentrate on beside what we're discussing — skating, for example — we may relax a little bit and talking may become easier."

Holly was still looking at him oddly, so he turned the water off and dried his hands, walking toward her when he was done.

"I also thought —"

"When do you not, Artemis?"

"— that it would be somewhat like a _date_, to use a loose term."

Holly let go of her skeptical expression, her mouth loosening into a smile. "Listen to you," she said. "Only Artemis Fowl could turn the task of asking out a girl into something incredibly geeky."

"'Geeky?' I believe that term is used to describe someone like Foaly. I am rather insulted."

"I'm terribly sorry."

"Yes, I'm sure you are." He took her hands. "What do you say, Holly? A night out, where we can talk about... things?" He swallowed audibly. "Without yelling at each other?"

"Now there's a miracle if I've ever seen one," Holly said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss Artemis on the cheek. "Grab your coat, Mud Boy. We've got a subway to catch."

* * *

"I can't do this!" Holly yelled to Artemis, who was clinging to the wall some ten feet ahead of her. "How did you talk me into this?"

He laughed shakily, his feet threatening to slip out from under him. "I have no idea. I don't even know how I convinced _myself. _But do try, Cher."

Holly shot him a dirty look before squinting out into the rink at people zipping by, single or hand-in-hand with another person. She glanced at her hands, firmly gripping the wall, before pushing a little bit away, her blades threatening to slip and cause her to tumble to the ice.

"Go on. Take a step," Artemis urged her.

"Shut up. You're not the one doing this." Holly scooted one skate forward, throwing out her arms for balance, and then followed it up with the other. A few steps later she was even with Artemis, who was watching her movements carefully.

"For being a brilliant physicist," Holly hissed at him, "you suck at moving."

Artemis scowled before pushing an arm's reach away from the wall, standing next to her. "I never actually got a degree in physics. I'm just good at it."

"Then I hereby classify you as an idiot."

"What did you go to college for? Physical Education?"

"You know full well I didn't go to college, _Jack_."

During this exchange they had moved perhaps two inches forward, a fact that Artemis was most aware of and peeved by. Because of this he took a daring full step forward, nearly falling flat on his face, but he managed to take another one, and then another. Within another ten steps he had gotten the basic movement down and he could slip slowly across the ice without waving his arms for balance. He turned around and crept back to Holly, who was still moving at an agonizingly slow pace.

"Just calculate the acceleration you need," he murmured to her once he reached her. Holly gave him a filthy look.

"What, and factor in pi and reverse gravity or whatever it is?"

"My dear, there is no such thing as 'reverse gravity.'" Artemis took her hand. "Just... take a step forward."

Holly slipped her hand easily out of his and took a step without falling down. "Huh," she muttered, looking back at him. Artemis shrugged and she took another few.

"It seemed so hard, just standing there," she said, and he nodded in agreement. "And in reality, all you have to do it walk."

"Strange, I know."

Holly looked out to the hundreds of people gliding effortlessly over the ice and decided to give it a try. She stuck her tongue between her teeth and pushed one skate out, keeping it in contact with the ice, and then the other. A few pushes later she was going a bit too fast for her liking, and the moment the thought crossed her mind she pushed her skates to the side and sprayed the side of the rink with ice.

"Impressive," came a voice behind her, and she turned to see Artemis watching her feet with rapt attention. "How did you do that?"

"Just experiment." She reached out her hand and he took it, following her lead as once again she began to push herself over the ice.

Artemis smiled as he built up speed, hand in hand with Holly. It had taken a moment to figure out, but now that he felt confident in at least moving slowly he was enjoying himself. He looked up from his feet to share his smile with Holly, but unfortunately it appeared that Artemis was not ready to stop concentrating on what his feet were doing. Holly shrieked a little as she was brought unexpectedly to the ice underneath Artemis, who was making a bizarre noise halfway between a groan and a laugh.

"Get off me!" Holly laughed, shoving him playfully, but Artemis remained hovering over her, looking down at her with a curious expression on his face.

"I rather like this new arrangement," he murmured before swooping down and kissing her nose. Holly pushed him up, scowling playfully, and then struggled to her feet alongside him, her skates slipping.

"Do you have the gun, Holly?" He asked her this as she was rising to her feet, and when what he had said sunk in she slipped again.

"Who told you about that?" Her hand drifted toward her coat, on the inside which dwelled the dormant, modified gun.

"Butler. We spoke this morning." He pulled her up a bit. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you had kind of... figured it out. I'm sorry, but I honestly thought you knew. It's been in my coat ever since I got here."

"I see." He watched her stand, amusement sparking behind his contacted eyes. "I believe you."

"So," she said once she was firmly standing. "Why did I catch you smoking today?"

"Technically, I wasn't really smoking," he replied, "not to avoid your question." Artemis carded a hand through his hair, moving it out of his eyes before reaching down to take her hand again. "You don't actually inhale cigar smoke." He stopped when she raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in an expression that very much reminded him of himself. "I, like my father before me and his father before him, smoke when I am exceptionally stressed."

"Stressed about...last night?"

Artemis kept his gaze steadily on his skates, though whether it was out of balance or nerves Holly couldn't tell. She knew they were both thinking of the same thing; how hard they had both been breathing, and then the sudden stiffness that had taken over Artemis's body before he had shoved himself away, hands trembling uncontrollably. How he had explained quickly in a voice that shook like a thirteen-year-old boy's that he had met unforeseen complications, and that things were more complex than they had initially thought. How Holly had just stared at him as he had slipped his pajama pants all the way back on, ripping his shirt over his head on his way out of the room. How he had been gone when she woke up the next morning.

_This has to be done. Four words. Four small words and then you can talk like a civilized human being._

Holly had looked away when Artemis spoke. "Are you a virgin?"

She stopped skating, nearly making him fall back on his rear, but he managed to keep his balance. "Is that _all_? Is that what had you all hung up?"

"I... no, not all, but some." He looked away, blood uncharacteristically rushing to his face. "I just think that we need to think things through before we continue like this." He pulled on her hand and they began to skate slowly together. "I honestly do... _want _you, but I'm uncertain about the repercussions."

Holly bit her lower lip thoughtfully. "You're having a very hard time acting like Jack tonight."

Artemis shrugged a bit. "That's why I brought us here. It's crowded, so no one will eavesdrop, but we can still concentrate on something other than pissing each other off."

"Did you really just say that? 'Pissing each other off?'" She laughed. "If someone had told me a year ago that you would have said that I would have laughed my ass off."

"You didn't answer my question."

"What, am I a virgin?"

"Exactly."

Holly looked out in front of her, her fingers, chilled by the air rising from the ice, curling tighter around his. "No," she said after a minute. "No, I'm not."

Artemis nodded slowly.

"It was secondary school. I was two months away from graduating. I had a boyfriend. Rich bastard, he was."

"Ouch. I'm hurt."

"No, he was stupid. Very full of himself too." She looked up at him. "Do you remember the first night I was here, and I made some comment about Max Green?"

"Something along the lines of him being a creep and having a crush on you."

"Sure," she replied. "Well... not a crush. Lust was all it was, really. He was into easy girls, and I fell right into his trap." She laughed humorlessly, her breath puffing out from between her lips. "I was stupid enough to believe that he really loved me, but after a while, I became suspicious. Other girls told me things, and... well, I came to realize just how dumb I had been." She leaned her head into his shoulder for a split second. "Max... was something I regret."

"Am I?"

She turned her eyes up on him, slowing their skating until they were at a standstill, facing each other. "Artemis Fowl," she breathed, tilting her head to the side. "I could never regret you." She kissed him lightly, rising up onto the tips of her skates, her hands resting on his scarf before pulling back with a smile. "Is your question sufficiently answered?"

"I do believe so," he whispered, a bit hoarse. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected to be your first. After all, you're something like 100, aren't you?"

"91, as you well know." Holly sighed, looking out into the rink as they cautiously began to turn around the corner, Artemis holding out his free hand for balance. "But that wasn't all, was it? What else is bothering you?"

"Pregnancy, really. That's all that I honestly have left."

Holly looked completely away then, her hand tightening on Artemis's again. "I had my tubes tied when I was 69," she said softly. "Which was right after I had had sex with Max for the first time. I didn't exactly tell my mother, but... I don't trust condoms."

"Surely the People have better contraceptives than humans."

"No, not really," Holly said. "We're such an endangered population that no one really wants to _not _have children. Some families have twenty kids just because they feel like it's their duty to revamp the population."

"So we don't even have to worry about you getting pregnant?"

"Nope."

"If I had just known that last night..." he huffed, hair blowing away from his disgruntled face.

"If you had known that last night, we never would have gone on a date, learned to ice skate, or realize that having a distraction keeps us from getting mad." Holly smiled up at him. "I'm glad we did this."

"I'm not a genius for nothing."

"Oh, hush, you." Holly leaned up against him, causing him to stumble, but she pulled him back up before he could fall to the ice. "Is that... all that you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes," he whispered. "I do believe that was all, for the moment."

The night that followed was slow and lingering, traces of heat and writhing embraces lingering on the dawn as the sun began to break over the city, glowing orange light slowly moving over the two bodies twined under the duvet, sweet, quiet, and content amidst the chaos of life.

Sometime, during the haze of heat and touches, he felt her lips at his ear. "You're half my perfect world," she breathed, and he shuddered, feeling a small shock of confusion jolt through him.

"And the other half?"

"Me."

Two lovers, finally breaking down the walls and burning all the secrets. Two lovers, laying their hearts out to each other. Two lovers, through all their differences, shamelessly each other's.

Two lovers, together a perfect world.


	16. Chapter 15

**No, dear readers, I am not dead, and no, you may not kill me. I have three excuses for why this took almost a month to update. First and foremost, I attend an accelerated high school in which, like all high schools and colleges, we are subjected to finals, but ours are _nasty_. Seriously, they are terrible, and, when looked at closely, are just excuses to drop the student's GPAs. I am proud to announce that all of my studying paid off and I got all As and Bs on my finals. Secondly, my external hard drive decided to die 500 words from finishing this chapter. It wiped almost all of my school-related and non-school-related documents, including this fic, my iTunes, my Adobe InDesign and Photoshop work, and every picture I have taken from 2003 to present. I just about died that day. I pulled myself together after a long and very difficult week and began writing again on my father's laptop. And last but not least, a few paragraphs from finishing, the computer froze and I was forced to force-quit the program, losing 2,000 words I had spent hours writing.**

**So I think a month was certainly justifiable. You have my honor that it will never happen again, as I have the rest of the break to finish this story and I have it saved on two separate USB keys.**

**As a last note, the song played in this chapter can be found by searching "Half the Perfect World, Madeleine Peyroux" on YouTube, though the quality is awful. I would recommend starting to listen to it at "'Would you turn to track nine, Holly?'"**

**CONTENT: language, some sexual content**

**

* * *

**

Chapter 15: Cheap Wine and Peyroux**  
**

There was nothing in an environment that Holly loved more than soft jazz playing in the background, making a heady sort of aura spread over the space, putting a sort of substance in the air. A perfect night was spent curled up on the couch with Artemis, drinking thick red wine or cheap vodka, depending on the kind of night that would follow, each reading their own book or lost in their own thought, occasionally voicing an opinion of sorts. These nights always led to lazy mornings. Morning in which they would stay under the covers until noon, and then get up and drink coffee (Artemis had convinced her to try it) on the balcony, watching the city pass by in their pajamas.

Of course, those were summertime moments. Winter was spent inside, wishing the heater worked properly, huddled together under the covers, most of the time completely naked in order to catch as much body heat from each other. These nights also usually led to lazy mornings, but a different kind. They would wake slowly, argue briefly about who was going to get up first and warm up the shower, and then, once this had been established, they would take a scalding hot shower together and shiver madly once it was over.

Either way, jazz was always their accompanist.

"I simply do not see why you insist on listening to it," Artemis regularly complained. "It is nice in small doses, but all of this genre is the same as its brothers, and after a few songs it simply gets a bit repetitive. Why not classical, or even orchestral soundtracks?"

"Admit it, Artemis," she would reply without looking up from what she was doing. "Jazz makes for great sex music."

He would sigh. "Fine. But life is not sex, Holly."

_Then _she would turn, raising an eyebrow. "Are you implying that I'm not good enough in bed to make an impression?"

A panicked look would cross over his face at her expression — the expression that was always prior to her ignoring him for three days — and quickly amended his slip with the conclusion that maybe jazz was not so bad after all.

On the night of December 23rd, three days more than a year after they had come home from Rockefeller Center and bonded completely, soft holiday themed jazz was playing from their small stereo system. Holly had set about chopping together a salad and giving Artemis the stink eye every time she caught him edging toward the sound system.

"Leave it." She flicked a thin sliver of carrot at him. He pawed, scowling, at his hair, where it had landed with a soft smack.

"Honor doesn't like jazz."

"Sure she does." Holly scraped the small stack of carrots off of the cutting board and into the large bowl she was tossing the salad in. "We danced to it last week."

"Just to make you happy. Not because she likes it."

"Oh, stop it, Artemis." She leaned up and pecked him fondly on the cheek. "It's Christmas Eve. Loosen up a bit." She smacked his rear with the oversized salad spoon. "Now make yourself useful and open a bottle of something."

"Chianti?"

"Actually, I'd prefer Merlot, if that's all right."

He shrugged, glad to make her happy, and reached up into the cupboard for the small collection of wine they had. "To think," he muttered, pulling down a bottle with an abstract kangaroo on the label. "If someone had told me two years ago that I would be drinking Yellowtail on a regular basis I would have sent them to a mental institution."

"Hey, Yellowtail's all right. Nothing compared to sim-wine, but all right."

"Be that as it may, it is trash compared to the wines I used to drink."

"Naughty boy, drinking under the age limit."

Artemis worked the cork out, tossing it into a bowl of wine corks they had on the counter for some project Holly wanted to do. "Yes, I feel so devilish. Perhaps I should repent, for I've been drinking wine since I was fourteen."

"Your poor mother."

There was a knock on the door, and Artemis glanced at the kitchen clock before heading to the front of the apartment.

_Show time_.

The moment he opened the front door he was attacked by a spider-thin boy, his twiggy legs wrapping around Artemis's, his arms grabbing around his neck. Behind him, Honor stood, a half apologetic and half amused expression on her face.

"Gray," Artemis said with a laugh. "Get down, you little monster."

The gangly teenager obliged, shooting a cheeky grin at Artemis before darting farther into the apartment and leaping at Holly. Honor watched him like a hawk, following his every move lest something bad happen out of the blue.

Gray had spent four months in rehabilitation, which Artemis had mysteriously paid for out of thin air, and then had been allowed to venture back into the city under the watch of his older sister. During the rehab he had been weaned of his addiction, and had been nursed out of his pneumonia. Over a year had passed since he had met Artemis, and he had grown five inches, gained forty-four pounds, and completely shed his addiction to heroin.

"Do you have that raspberry vinaigrette you had last week?" he was eagerly asking Holly in the kitchen.

"I think my brother has a little crush on your girlfriend," Honor stage-whispered to Artemis, and Gray scowled over his shoulder at his sister.

"Not so. I just like their dressing, that's all. And Cher makes good salads."

"I've had plenty of practice," Holly replied easily, ruffling Gray's ashy blonde hair. He beamed up at her and asked if he could help, leading Holly to set him to work.

Artemis turned to Honor when he was sure that Gray was occupied. "Do you have a new recipe to teach us?"

She smiled and reached into her hobo bag, pulling out a piece of paper that she waved proudly around like a flag. "Family concoction," she declared. "I've finally decided that you're worthy enough to butcher it."

"Hey now, we've only set off the fire sprinklers once." Artemis took the paper and looked it over, a corner of his lips twitching up. "Roasted New Potatoes. Shouldn't be too hard."

"But these are kick-ass potatoes, dude. Watch your back, because these are supa-fly."

"Okay..." He shook his head and wiggled a pan onto the counter. "How many potatoes did you bring?"

"Six. Portions of one for each, and then leftovers for you guys. If you don't eat them all tonight like you did last week, fatty." She pulled the potatoes out of her bag, setting them on the counter, and then hefted a bag of rosemary, minced garlic, and a small bottle of olive oil beside them.

"Salt?"

"You know where it is."

She rolled her eyes and reached across him, opening an upper cabinet and retrieving the salt. "Yes, but that actually requires me to move instead of you moving for me." She turned a bit and eyed her younger brother, who was carrying on an upbeat conversation with a forever patient Holly (where this patience had come from, Artemis had no idea). "I honestly do think he's fond of her, though," she said in a low voice. "He smiles so big when she's around."

"Yes," Artemis replied softly, carefully setting to work at cutting the potatoes. "She has that affect on people, doesn't she?"

Honor grinned broadly and ruffled his hair. "I swear to God, you two are perfect for each other."

He smiled slightly and glanced at the recipe while cutting. In his momentary lapse of concentration, the knife slipped in his grip.

"Ow! Shit!" Artemis dropped the knife on the cutting board and Holly turned around, her eyebrows shooting up as thick droplets of blood began to splatter on the stone of the counter. Artemis snatched a dishtowel, stuffing it around his hand to stem the flow, but there was already red all over the knife and counter.

"Hell, dude," Honor noted, having pulled the potatoes to safety. "How bad are you bleeding?"

Artemis peeked underneath the terry cloth, and Holly could see his eyes carefully analyzing his cut with the trained gaze of a doctor. He poked carefully at the raw skin, wincing a bit when he grazed it wrong. "Not too bad," he said after a minute. "I won't need stitches. Who wants to help me fix this up?"

"I will!" Gray leaped off of the counter on the other side of the sink, leading Artemis away into the bathroom, chattering loudly along the way. Holly stared after him for a minute and then reached into the cabinet under the sink to grab paper towels and cleaning spray.

"Are the potatoes any good now?"

Honor leaned over them, inspecting the flesh of the potatoes carefully. "Yeah, they're fine. Once he gets his ass out of the bathroom we can continue this."

Holly wiped the blood off of the counter, sighing softly through her nose as the scarlet splattered over the cheap stone stained the paper towels she dragged across it.

"Stupid boy."

"Hey, it's all good," Honor replied, leaning next to her. "He was just a little careless."

Holly glanced toward the bathroom, where she could clearly hear Artemis and Gray talking as they washed the cut. "He seems to be more and more careless lately," she said, lowering her voice so that he would not hear across the small apartment.

Honor raised an eyebrow as Holly picked up the knife and ran it under the faucet. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Forget I said it."

"No, if it's bothering you, it's important, Cher." Honor took the knife and dried it off with a paper towel. "If you can't talk to him about it, tell me." Holly must have looked skeptical because Honor raised an eyebrow and continued. "Look, I know you and I haven't really clicked over the past year – no offense, but you're kind of antisocial – but I care about how things work between you and Jack. He's my friend, and you're my friend, even if you don't really talk to me much." Comprehension rose on her face, and she put a hand on Holly's shoulder. "Are you worried about me and him…?"

"No! No, no, of course not." Holly pulled out of Honor's grip, taking the knife and slicing up the remainder of the potatoes. "No, you're very nice, Honor, and I'm really glad that you come over every other Wednesday to do these cooking lessons, and I'm in no way concerned that you're trying to seduce Jack or anything, but… I just… I don't really like… people."

Honor nodded slowly, an utterly unconvinced expression on her face. "You don't like people, huh?"

"Yes, sort of."

"Cher, you're a _librarian_."

Holly shrugged, wiping small slivers of potato off of the knife. "You're not really supposed to talk in a library."

Honor rolled her eyes, watching Holly work. "You like Gray enough."

"Gray's a kid." Holly placed the knife on the cutting board. "I like being around kids more than adults. Kids don't judge you."

"Does Jack?"

"No. But Jack's different. I've known him for years and years." She looked away, playing with a stray strand of hair. "He's one of the few people I can completely be comfortable with."

"I would hope so, since you're sleeping together." She pulled the pan Artemis had pulled out earlier toward her, tossing the potatoes together in it. "You and Jack seem like a model couple, to be honest."

Holly shrugged.

"Why the shrug? You don't think so?"

"He..." Holly shook her head. "Never mind. It's not important."

"Cher, you _have _to open up if you want to become more comfortable with people! Talk to someone besides Jack! We're here for you!"

Holly stared at her, wide-eyed as she listened to Artemis teaching Gray how to bind a medical bandage in the bathroom. Honor stared right back, her gray eyes intense in the somewhat dim light of the kitchen. Holly found herself thinking that maybe it was time to let up a bit and let new people into her life. Humans were her family now, and she had to accept them without exploiting herself. She could do it, right? Artemis did it. And therefore... she could as well. Right?

_D'arvit_, Holly thought bitterly. _How much am I willing to risk to really live again?_

"I wanted to be a doctor when I'm older."

* * *

This caught Artemis by surprise. He and Gray had been somewhat silent for a minute, watching the water stream from red to pink to clear again. He looked up, listening intently as Gray continued.

"We don't have any money for college, and I've screwed up my school life enough so that I'll never get a scholarship." He fiddled with a bottle of peroxide, intently reading the active ingredients listed on the back. "So it's just a hopeless dream, I guess."

"Why?"

Gray looked up from the bottle as Artemis turned off the tap. "Why what?"

"Why do you want to be a doctor?"

The boy looked down at the bottle and shrugged, his cheeks tinging a littler. Artemis waiting, just staring at him until he glanced up, caught him looking, and ducked his head back down.

"Gray. C'mon. Why?"

Gray placed the peroxide on the side of the sink and became very interested in his socks.

"Gray?"

"I wanted to become a doctor," Gray said after a minute. "so that I could help people like my mom."

"You know," Artemis said, wrapping his hand back into the dish towel and sitting on the closed toilet lid. "I don't actually know how she died."

"Well," Gray replied. "She was kind of bat-shit."

"Gray," Artemis chided. "Don't swear. Honor hates it."

Gray shrugged, letting go of his socks and reaching into the open medicine cabinet and pulling out a tube of topical cream that Holly had needed for a case of ringworm back in July. "She wasn't crazy. She was just kind of dysfunctional. She had diabetes and she didn't really like to take care of herself, no matter what Honor tried to get her to do. Honor would yell and cry and plead all the time for her to pick up her medication and her insulin, and to stop smoking. I remember watching from the living room, not really getting it. I was eight when she had her first heart attack. Honor got her back on track for a while, but then she started slipping up. And then one day, when I was ten, Honor left to go pick me up from school and when we came back she was laying on the kitchen on the floor and she wasn't breathing. It was so scary at the time, but when I look back on it, I guess I was always expecting it to happen after the first heart attack. Honor ran me over to the neighbors — we lived in a better place then — and then called 911, but it was too late. She was gone."

"Jesus," Artemis murmured, his gaze fixed on the boy in front of him. Gray sat down on the side of the bathtub, resting his spine against the glass brick wall.

"I always thought, after that, that if I had understood the significance of her not taking her medication and stuff, that I could have tried to get her to take care of herself too. Because I think Honor just came off as a rebellious teenager. But I was a little kid, and I loved my mom. I just didn't know that I could have stopped her from dying." Gray placed the tube of topical cream on the side of the sink, keeping his eyes away from Artemis. "I want to be a doctor," he said, "so I can make sure that people like her don't leave their kids alone."

"Look…" Artemis shifted where he was sitting, leaning over his knees. "It sounds like you're incredibly passionate about this. About wanting to be a doctor."

Gray shrugged, and after a moment he nodded, staying silent. He began to take interest in his socks again, playing with his toes.

"There are millions of things you can do when you grow up, but if you pick one thing, and if you're passionate about it, no matter what stands in your way, you can do it. I speak from experience."

Gray finally looked up, cocking an eyebrow. "From experience? You didn't even graduate from high school, Jack."

_Oh, God. Oh, no, what have I said?_

"Well…" Artemis thought quickly. What the hell had his character accomplished? For the love of God, he waited tables in a restaurant! What could he have achieved that would have been a childhood dream?

Out in the kitchen he heard Holly's muted speech increase in volume a little, and realized that what he would tell Gray would, for once, not be a lie, or an incomplete truth.

"I found Cher."

"Oh, God," Gray groaned, rolling his eyes.

"What? I know it's a little different, but —"

"Don't go all mushy-mushy-lovey-dovey on me, Jack. I haven't even gone back to regular school yet. I don't see girls like you do. Besides, being a doctor and meeting the girl of your dreams are kind of different."

"Wait," Artemis interrupted. "You're going back to school?" Artemis leaned forward intently, noting the faint color that tinged Gray's cheeks.

"Yeah, when the district starts back up I'll be going into the middle of freshman year."

"A year early?"

"Eighth grade work is a piece of cake, Jack."

"And your tics?"

Gray glanced up at him, looking a little sheepish. "I still smoke a little. It keeps them off. Keeps my anxiety off, too."

"Just so long as you keep it love, little man." Artemis hitched one long leg over his adjacent knee, cradling his chin in his unwounded hand. "I'm not opposed to smoking a little, but stay safe. I have this little fantasy in the back of my head of seeing you get married when you're twenty-some-odd years old."

Gray gave him a weird look. "You're... _special,_ Jack."

He laughed a bit. "Why? You're like a little brother to me."

"Really?" Gray's voice was soft, vulnerable in the relative quiet of the apartment.

"Does that surprise you?"

Gray snorted, looking away. "Maybe a little, considering what a little bitch I was when we met."

"Gray."

"I know, language, language. Sorry."

Artemis stood, pulling a glue-based medical bandage out of the medicine cabinet above the sink. "Hey, Doctor-boy," he said, tossing the bandage to him. "You want to learn how to heal a cut without stitches?"

* * *

The door had barely closed, goodbyes gratefully said to Honor and Gray, when Holly dropped all of her act and collapsed on the couch with a great sigh. Artemis locked the front door and sat next to her, running a hand over her forehead.

"Are you all right?"

She looked at him sleepily through her lashes. "I had a little too much to drink tonight," she mumbled. "It was hard to keep it up. I like those two enough, and I really appreciate them giving us cooking lessons, but it's just so hard to maintain the character around them."

"Mm." Artemis leaned back, his body crossing over hers in a cross, listening to the holiday jazz that was still playing softly in the background. "Though I think in the long run we'll be glad to have had friends here."

She shrugged. "Maybe. Or we'll expose ourselves to them and it'll all be over." A silence fell between them, and they half-listened to Eartha Kitt croon to her Santa Baby to give her what she wanted for Christmas. "How long," Holly mused aloud once the song ended, "do you think we have before we have to start over? Before we have to make new identities and move away again?"

Artemis sighed heavily, reaching a hand out to take her fingers that lay carelessly flung across her stomach. "I think another six months. Anything after that would be infinitely more dangerous than what we've been doing."

"Where should we go? A small town?"

"Never small towns. There are too few people. Everyone knows each other, and outsiders draw attention."

Holly traced the bandages covering Artemis's cut. "If you don't want attention, why did you befriend Honor and Gray?"

Artemis thought about her question for a while, arranging the words very carefully in his brain. "I've wondered the same thing," he said slowly. "And I've come to conclude that I was so desperate for a real conversation with a real person that when the opportunity arose with Honor, I just took it. And then when she needed help with rehabilitating Gray I went along because she and I had become sort of casual friends, and I didn't want to lose that. Then I met him, and he reminded me so much of my brothers that it was impossible not to help him. And I suppose that I've grown to trust them both with my fake personality. They're good people, Honor and Gray."

"No doubt," Holly said. "I actually started having a real conversation with her tonight."

"Really?" Artemis sat up a bit. "She had voiced that thought to me. That maybe you didn't like her because you never talked." He leaned back down, his head resting lazily on the sofa. "What did you talk about?"

Holly's thumb absently rubbed the back of his bandaged hand. "Us."

He looked at her in confusion. "Us? What about us?"

Despite his intent stare, she kept her gaze on the ceiling. "About how you've never told me you love me."

There was a long, stunned silence after that statement. Though his eyes remained fixed on her, Artemis's gaze slid out of focus as he thought very hard on what to say in response. His mind, for once in his life, came up absolutely blank. What was he supposed to say to that? He had reasons, sure, but they were terrible copouts. Simple acts of cowardice, if one looked at them hard enough. Insecurity, uncertainty. Certainly unacceptable when it came to Artemis Fowl II.

"Holly," he said, and then swallowed. He did not continue his sentence.

"Look," she said after a minute, releasing his hand and sitting up. "We haven't had to deal with the trust thing in a year, Artemis. Don't start this now. I want to know why." He opened his mouth and she placed a hand over it. "Don't interrupt. I'm not accusing you of anything. I just want to know why you haven't said it."

She took her hand away from his mouth and he stared at her with a wild, animal sort of fear in his eyes. "I…" He licked his lips, glancing around the room as if for inspiration. "I… have never said that phrase in my life."

Holly blinked; she hadn't expected that as a response. Perhaps "I cannot be sure if I do love you" was closer to what she had thought he would said, or maybe something starting with "According to the reductive theory of evolution added to the quantum equation intermixed with the DNA replication process, it is biologically impossible…" But this? She hadn't been expecting this.

"You've _never _said it? Even to your parents?"

"Not aloud, no." Artemis swallowed again, training his gaze firmly on the dark wooden floors. "It's a sort of… celibacy to me. Not a perfect metaphor, but to say that… I see it as a very sacred thing."

"Artemis, you consider after all the things we've done in that bedroom that we're no close enough to be 'sacred?'"

He shook his head urgently, silencing her protests. "No, no. It's not that at all. I grew up in a household where affection was seen as weakness. Love was a waste of mental energy, and it was never returned in front of me." He ripped his gaze from the floor, getting on his knees and taking her face in his hands. "Please, please understand that I do feel so strongly for you, Holly. But it is so incredibly hard for me to say… that. It's a phobia, if you will. My mind has built up those three words to be a sort of earth-shattering occurrence. And when I say them, I have to be doing something incredibly important."

Holly closed her eyes, her expression unreadable. "You are so _difficult_."

"I'm sorry. Truly, I am. You should have picked a better man."

She slapped his shoulder. "Stop it, you wannabe martyr."

"Martyr?" He let her go and she rolled off of the couch, standing and making her way into the kitchen to clean up the last of that night's cooking exploration. He sat on the couch, listening to the last splashes of water from the sink and then the sound of her humming to the music before she groaned softly.

"Holly?"

"Stupid, stupid," she muttered. "I told her not to get us anything for Christmas."

"Oh, damn. Did she leave us something?"

"One of your stupid Mud-man CDs. Ancient, these things." Holly cut the plastic open and walked back into the living room, cutting the feed from her music player and blissfully cutting off the jazz for a minute.

"Who's the artist?"

Holly glanced down at the cover. "Madeleine Peyroux."

"Are you _serious_?" he groaned, throwing himself dramatically back down on the couch.

"What's your problem?"

"It's jazz music. My mother listens to her all the time."

Holly stuck out her tongue and inserted the CD into the small stereo. "Any good stuff?"

"Some. It depends what album you're listening to."

She threw him the case and he caught it with some difficulty, glancing at the cover as she had. "Yes," he said softly. "There are some good ones on here."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Would you turn to track nine, Holly?" She obliged and a musky sort of guitar and bass combination began to float out of the speakers. After a moment, calm, muted piano joined. Holly stood up from the stereo, jumping a bit when she realized Artemis had gotten up from the couch and was standing right behind her.

"Dance?" he offered, holding out his unharmed hand, and she took it. He placed the other hand on her waist, not technically dancing, but swaying gently to the words as she began to sing in the background.

_"Every night he'd come to me._

_ I'd cook for him; I'd pour his tea._

_ I was in my thirties then._

_ Had made some money._

_ Lived with men."_

Holly laid her head against his shoulder as a short, broken chord was played on the piano before her words continued.

_"We'd lay us down to give and get_

_ Beneath the white mosquito net_

_ And since no counting had begun_

_ We lived a thousand years _

_ In one."_

Two chords this time, played side by side. Artemis began to murmur the words in her ear as they swayed in place in their living room, his eyes slowly closing, drooping sleepily as he recited the words from memory.

_ "The candles burned._

_ The moon went down._

_ The polished hill,_

_ The milky town._

_ Transparent, weightless, luminous_

_ Uncovering the two of us_

_ On that fundamental ground_

_ Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound_

_ And half the perfect world is found."_

A sweetly warbling, muffled horn began to waft out of the speakers in place of her voice, and Artemis resorted to humming along in a contrasting harmony, slowly revolving their dance, slowly, ever so slowly dancing around the living room. Holly sighed softly into his shoulder, her breathing lulled by the music and the rocking back and forth. One hand moved from the back of his shoulder to the back of his neck, her fingers burying themselves in the low-hanging strands of hair that nearly reached the base of his neck. Artemis nestled his nose into her hair, continuing to hum as she began to sing again.

"_Candles burned._

_ The moon went down._

_ The polished hill,_

_ The milky town._

_ Transparent, weightless, luminous_

_ Uncovering the two of us_

_ On that fundamental ground_

_ Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound_

_ And half the perfect is found."_

The song drew instrumentally to a close, horn, bass, piano, guitar, and percussion drawing easily together in a gentle denouement. Artemis stopped their rocking as the last note held out, and they held each other close in the small silence between songs. There was a soft moment of peace in which Holly looked up at him, sleepy eyes meeting sleepy eyes, and she smiled. Within a second that smile had turned into a grimace as her languid ears were assaulted by whiny violins playing a sort of melancholy introduction. Artemis let it play for a moment before reaching over to the stereo and turning it off.

"_La Javanaise," _he murmured, returning to the embrace. "A French song. A good one, though not one of her best, and certainly not after the one we just heard."

Holly chose not to answer, opting instead for her human pillow. Artemis stood for a moment before realizing that she clearly was not going to move any time soon, and groaned. "Holly," he griped. "You know full well I can't carry you to bed."

"Heh..." Holly said into his shirt. "Though I could probably carry you."

"I do believe you are slightly drunk."

She smiled sleepily up at him, bringing her hands up to either side of his jaw, tilting his head down to stare down at her. "That was a lovely song, Arty," she whispered. "You have good taste."

"Yes, I think so too." He pulled her hands off of his neck. "You need to sleep off that wine, my dear."

"That sounds nice." Holly threaded her fingers into his. "What do you say to a date tomorrow?"

"So you can drink wine again?"

"No, silly Mud Boy. Because we haven't gone out together in a while and because it's Christmas Eve."

Artemis laughed slightly. "We'll talk about it when you're sober. Besides, I have to work from eleven to six, as per usual. Charlie's giving me Christmas Day off this year, thank God."

"Where should we go?" Holly asked, having completely ignored his little monologue.

"Perhaps Mars, if I feel up to it."

"Ha ha," Holly deadpanned. "Aren't you hilarious."

"I do try."

She let go of his hand, reaching up and gently ruffling his hair. "I'll see you in the morning, Artemis. And we'll talk about a date."

He rolled his eyes, following her as she padded across the living room to the bedroom, flicking off the tabletop Christmas tree on his way. "You are as stubborn as always."

"You wouldn't have it any other way."

"No," he replied, watching her with warm, contact lens-covered eyes as she bent over to pull pajamas out of the bottom drawer of the dresser. "I would have you no other way than exactly as you are."

"Tomorrow, 8:00. We are going out." She straightened up, undressing out of her day clothes. "I'll do some research and figure out where we're going during work."

"Holly."

"The library won't be busy tomorrow," she retorted, pulling her nightgown over her bare body. "I promise, in the name of education, that I won't neglect my duty so long as there are customers." She climbed onto her side of the bed, burrowing, a little unsteadily, under the covers. "Are you happy with that, sir?"

He climbed into bed with her, fully clothed. Holly took a moment to pick at his red plaid flannel shirt, wrinkling her nose, and then nestled down. Within a few minutes, she was asleep, leaving Artemis awake and staring at the crack in the ceiling.

_Why on Earth is it I feel so uneasy?_

He lay awake for a long while, as the wee hours of the morning began to pass by, his mind cycling between this life and the life previous to this year. In turn, he explored each member of his immediate family, from his polar opposite younger brothers, to his sweet, loving mother, to the father that had wanted to do good and had instead made him into the lying cheat he had struggled to overcome his whole life. He then thought of Butler, alone in his threadbare apartment, vice-like and willing to wait until the end of the world for his charge to call for help. And then Juliet, somewhere else in the vast city, Juliet, who he had not spoken directly with since she had called him to confirm Holly's imminent arrival. How had he left it all behind? It was a feat he had spent many, many hours thinking about, wondering where he had found the strength to let go of Artemis Fowl and all that surrounded him. Looking back he felt such a strong yearning to return to the life he had known before Holly had shown up in London, waterlogged and shell-shocked, a longing that he was not sure how he had overcome without ruining everything and turned back.

The woman asleep next to him shifted, muttering something indistinct in her sleep.

_That is not true,_ he thought to himself, curling one arm over the sheets to brush a few stray strands of hair from her untroubled face. _I know exactly how I've made it through this._

Her words from earlier in the evening came to mind._ "You've never told me you love me."_

And he found himself repeating the words he had whispered over a year ago, again when she could not hear him, again as a reassurance to himself even though it seemed more like a reply to her statement.

"Someday," Artemis Fowl whispered for only the crack stretched across the ceiling to hear. "Someday."

* * *

**And so the reason I ended up writing this fic is unveiled! AKA, I just wanted an excuse to make Artemis and Holly dance to this song. Does this now qualify HTPW as a (80,000+ word) songfic?**


	17. Chapter 16

**You now have permission to stone me to death. But! If you do that, dear readers — and I can't imagine for the life of me why on Earth you would do such a thing — you will not know what happens next... and this chapter is a biggie!**

**Story thus far, in case you've forgotten: It's Christmas Eve, over a year since the group arrived in New York. Holly scheduled a date for the night, and finally, we'll be catching up with Butler and Juliet.  
**

**I don't often ask, but please review. I really, really want to know how I'm doing and what I could be doing better.  
**

**CONTENT: language**

* * *

Chapter 16: Not for the Life of Me

Sleep was the only time that Juliet Butler could be herself.

It was not to say she had exceptional dreams or anything of the sort. Despite her strength and determination, Juliet was a normal woman in her mid-20s, and had had her fair share of dreams spanning across the spectrum of near-reality to heavy-drug-trip weird. But alone, in her bedroom, laying silent in the near-darkness of a city room, was the only time that she could peel off the mask of Clarisse Dyer.

Clarisse didn't speak much. She didn't really have consistent job, choosing instead to work as a sulky bartender or waitress by night and a musician in Central Park by day, clumsily playing a chipped violin for tips. What music she listened to was heavy metal to accompany her steady on-the-side marijuana dealings to the neighbors. Juliet had designed her to be stereotypically unnoticeable, and that was how it had been for the past year.

Juliet sighed, blowing putrid smoke from her half-open mouth. A heavy glass housing a stout drink hung in one hand, while a cigarette balanced delicately in the other. Her damaged, jet-black hair hung sullenly in front of her eyes, though she found no logic in putting either object down to push it away. She felt oily and disgusting, longing to pull herself up from the moth-eaten couch and start over, but she had a duty to stay.

The past year had not been kind to Juliet.

She had never thought that she couldn't leave her apartment without being called to like she was some whore, desperate for drugs and a meal. Most days she steadily ignored them, but that wasn't to say that she hadn't indulged herself once in a while. There would be days where she would be aching desperately for human contact, and would walk down the streets, watching men selling themselves for next to nothing, and then take up the offer of one who had the frightened look of being fresh to the business. And for an hour, she could be close to another body without the fear of discovery. In the filthy throes of a room somewhere she had never dreamed she would be, she could be in control.

Not that she should be in control. No, control was Artemis's job, though why she even bothered anymore was a mystery to her. Why live in misery when there was a home for her in Ireland, where she would be welcomed back with open arms? Why stay and pretend to protect a man who could obviously care for himself, who obviously didn't _need _her help? Why try so hard to be someone else when seemingly not days before, when she had accompanied Artemis to the opera she had had beautiful, possible dreams of the future.

Shame.

Shame was the answer to all of the questions she asked herself. What people would think if she up and abandoned the mission at hand... not that the three who knew would talk about it to anyone, but word did travel in the oddest ways. Not only possible future employers, or other bodyguards, but the people who honestly mattered to her. Madame Ko would be appalled at her lack of commitment, and Artemis would forever look down on her when she had worked all his life to earn his respect, and Holly would wish she were more like her brother, and the Fowl family would wonder why she was alive while their son was dead. And Domovoi... God, Dom would be heartbroken if she gave up on his principle, because giving up on Artemis meant giving up on him. His expectations for her, all the things he knew she could do... it would all be for nothing.

Juliet sat up with a low groan, stubbing out the butt of her cigarette on the cheap glass coffee table in front of the couch. There was nothing left to do that night but lay drinking on the couch and pitying herself.

"Jesus fucking Christ," she muttered, casting sullen eyes around the tiny living room. The place was, in layman's terms, a shit-hole; carpet so much string laid criss-crossing on the cement floor, the wallpaper bubbled and peeling from the pipes that leaked in the ceiling, the clunking of the refrigerator and faulty heater resonating through the sparse apartment. Juliet followed a cockroach crawling lazily across the middle of the floor, too used to it to be disgusted. More than once she had woken up in the morning with a roach on some part of her face. On the floor seemed perfectly clean compared to the thought of roaches in her bed.

Where had the time gone? In some part, it seemed so achingly long ago that she had crossed the border into the United States, griping about being uncomfortable from sitting for hours, but at the same time it seemed only moments ago. Her dreams, hopes, all the imagined scenarios she had planned out in her head... of meeting a man, of having a child or two to nurture and protect... visions of triumph, victory, of throwing other wrestlers to the floor, of dancing the night away at her wedding reception while her proud brother watched over, trying not to break the neck of the man who would steal her away...

If he were to break the neck of all the men to steal her now, Juliet was sure he would be classified as a serial killer.

She tore her eyes from the cockroach, which had stopped, confused, once it had reached the wall, and stood, placing her glass on the coffee table next to the cigarette, eyes lingering on the tiny dregs of amber that swirled around the bottom when she let go. Deciding it wasn't worth the effort to bend down and drain the very last of the alcohol, Juliet slumped across the floor, stumbling a little bit until she reached the doorframe that led to the closet of a bedroom. Despite her habit of staying up into the wee hours of the morning drinking and smoking and thinking about things that hurt, there was nothing she cherished more than sleep, and she flung herself onto the old mattress, the bed creaking underneath her weight.

She sighed and buried her nose into the pillow, not even caring about the stink of old milk it carried. Keeping her eyes closed, she kicked off her shoes, listening to them land with carrying clunks on the floor, and then brought her feet up onto the threadbare quilt when they were covered only by socks.

She felt an uncomfortable lump in her pocket, and dug out her pre-paid cell phone, dropping it unceremoniously onto the floor next to the bed. The ringer was on loud, and had been for over a year, but it had never once rang.

Juliet lay prostrate in the dark, listening to the traffic and the swearing of the men walking the streets outside the windows, thinking and thinking and thinking in the gloom.

Across this city, somewhere, there was a boy — no, a man now — named Artemis Fowl. A man who had standards that he would never have abandoned, even in his immersion as a different person. There were many things Fowls did not do. Paying for sex, chain smoking cigarettes, drinking the night away, pitying themselves, giving up... and what Fowls didn't do, Butlers didn't do.

She did not deserve the name of Butler.

Because on the top of the list of things that Fowls did not do was crying, which was exactly what Juliet proceeded to do, alone in the darkness of the city that never slept.

* * *

Domovoi Butler was only four stories lower to the ground than his little sister, silently standing in his kitchen while boiling noodles.

The water in the pot gurgled and hissed when a droplet would escape from the lidless container, splattering on the stove. Despite the waste of energy, Butler had not put a lid on a pot of boiling pasta for eighteen years, as Artemis would eat it no other way. Gone were the days of cooking lavish meals — filet mignon, ratatouille, bagels and lox with almas caviar — the heady aroma of expensive, delicious food filling the manor. Butler's cooking had always been one of the few things that would drag Artemis out from work, something in which he had always taken quiet pride in.

But now there was only himself to cook for.

He absently reached for a wooden spoon sitting by the pot, reaching in and stirring the noodles around and around without even glancing at the bubbling water. He had silently prepared dinner that night, his hands shaking as he had used the can opener for the marinara sauce, the pan of chicken drooping dangerously as he had pulled it out of the oven.

Chemotherapy certainly was not easy on a body.

In the months and months since Artemis had visited, pleading for his advice, Butler had been visited by his younger sister several times, each time bringing him a new bag of intravenous medicine for his false chemotherapy treatment, each time looking a little more nervous, a little more tired and beaten down, a little less like the Juliet he had watched grow up.

"You look thin," he had murmured the last time she had walked through his door.

"Like you don't, Dom?" She had pulled several treatments worth of medicine out of her bag, making Butler's stomach clench a little.

"I have a reason to have lost weight, Juliet," he had replied, putting one hand on the wall beside her head. "I'm on medication that makes me like this so that I can fit the persona I need to. You aren't. You need to take better care of yourself, do you understand?"

She had shoved his hand away with a scowl. "I'm twenty-two, Dom. I can take care of myself any way I want."

Butler's face had adopted an expression almost like pain — though it certainly couldn't be, because Butlers did not feel pain — before he had backed off, retreating to the kitchen to make tea.

For some reason she could not gather, Juliet had not left.

"Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," Butler had replied from the other room. "You're an adult now. You can make your own choices."

She had followed him in, immediately awestruck by the multi-million dollar setup in her brother's kitchen, as she had never been in before. "You keep a close eye on him, don't you?"

Butler had eyed the insane amount of hardware piled on counters and tables and in open cupboards. Monitors displaying camera feeds from various places — Artemis's apartment (sans the bedroom), his and Holly's places of work, the subway stations he frequently used — and police scanners and missile scanners and an automatic word-triggered phone tapping system were among a few of the boxes and wires that occupied over two thirds of Butler's small kitchen.

"As close as I can without being with him like I used to." He had frowned. "It's immeasurably difficult to not follow him undercover."

Juliet had snorted. "Like he wouldn't notice."

Butler had turned back to his boiling water, fiddling with nothing. "I never once thought I would say it, but I dearly miss being around people."

"Being an introvert kind of sucks, doesn't it?" She had leaned on the counter by him. He did not look her way, so she continued. "He has it all, doesn't he? A lover, a nice home, a job, friends..."

"He's more burdened than you realize," Butler had replied. "He doesn't even let himself know it, but he stresses."

"Still, Dom."

"I have no concerns for myself while Artemis is still around to protect," Butler had said. "You, on the other hand, should not be living like this."

"Jesus, you're like a mother hen."

"It's my job, Juliet. It will be my job until I die protecting Artemis."

And so here he stood, watching over the monitors while the pasta boiled, spending his second annual Christmas Eve not protecting anyone. And for the love of God, he thought, absently stirring the spoon as he watched Holly and Artemis shrug on their coats and head out the door, I never thought alienation could hurt.

* * *

"Good Lord, you are being simply ridiculous."

Holly shushed him, though no one was paying attention to the small blonde woman leading her blindfolded boyfriend across Times Square. "You don't sound like you're dressed, _Jack_."

Artemis frowned and tilted his head down toward his outfit, which was, in retrospect, quite pointless, as he couldn't see two feet in front of his face. "I am quite fine with the dress attire, dear. You have no idea how much I've missed it. But these _shoes_…"

"What, fashionista? It's quite popular around your crowd, I've heard." Holly nudged him, grinning cheekily despite the fact that Artemis was temporarily blind. "Besides, you look simply adorable."

Artemis's cheeks flushed, his lips pursing. "That word is used for kittens and small children. Not me."

Holly laughed, swinging his hand around. Artemis grabbed wildly and latched on her upper arm, skittish in the huge mass of pedestrians.

"So help me, I will take this off you do that again," he snapped, prodding at the blindfold with his shoulder.

"Don't. You'll see where we're going."

"Because I haven't figured it out already."

Holly scowled at him, though he was oblivious to it, and asked a stupid question. "How?"

"Please. I'm a genius."

"You need to act more like yourself, _Jack_," Holly said, tugging him along. "There's something a bit off with you tonight. You seem almost… anal? Is that the word I'm looking for?" She twirled her other hand around his tie, yanking him down to her level. "Don't slip up, all right?"

Artemis raised an eyebrow, a long-forgotten smirk gracing his face as he corrected his speech, putting on an uneducated slur in his voice. "_Bitch_, please. I'm a genius."

Holly let go of him altogether, smacking him on the back of his head for good measure. Artemis froze in the middle of the square, his body rigid as he found himself lost. People simply parted around him, finding nothing odd about the gangly young man in slacks, a dress shirt, vest and tie, and bright red Converse, a thick pea coat shrugged over his body. After all, it was New York.

Holly stood right in front of him with her hands on her hips, saying nothing, though Artemis clearly had no idea where she was. His hands itched up to take off the blindfold, but he brought them back down.

_A trust exercise, I see._

Holly let him stand there for a minute more, fingers twitching at his sides as he grew more and more nervous, and then took his arm and kept walking as if nothing had happened. "I'll admit, that _was_ kind of funny. What you said."

"Also mildly offensive, I'd wager from your actions?"

Holly thought a moment, and then shook her head, though of course Artemis was still blindfolded. "No," she said. "If it had been anyone else, I would have gone all ninja on them and beaten their ass black and blue, but I know you didn't mean it. I'll cut you some slack because, somehow, you're still _so _etiquette-retarded."

"I beg to differ, but if it keeps this relationship from turning abusive in public, I will accept myself as… 'etiquette-retarded.'"

"That a boy." Holly patted his back like a dog, and then they turned sharply, veering off of Artemis's mental map.

"I am now lost," he stated simply, letting her drag him blindly over the sidewalk.

"Good," Holly replied cheerfully, winding an arm around his waist. "I'd rather our date be a surprise."

"I would surmise it is a show of some kind –"

"_Jack._"

"Mm, sorry. I _guess _we're going to see a show, right?"

"Correct, my dear."

"Am I allowed to ask what that show is?"

Holly glanced behind them, grinned innocently at the stoic-faced business man walking a few feet behind, and whacked Artemis playfully on the ass. He yelped a bit, his feet skipping a step and causing him to stumble. She laughed, and for a moment he glowered from behind the blindfold in her general direction, his hand never leaving hers.

"I take that as a no?"

"It's a surprise."

"Bullshit," Artemis replied easily, and the man walking behind them cleared his throat in annoyance. Artemis turned around, walking backwards, stared blindly somewhere off to the right of the man, and shrugged. Holly looked over her shoulder and again flashed the man a cheeky grin before dragging Artemis back forwards.

When Holly finally removed his blindfold, Artemis drank in every aspect of his surroundings. The theatre was not enormous, but not necessarily small either. He ran through his mental list of New York theaters, omitting all lavish venues immediately, as the space was rather plain.

"Classic Stage Company," he said after a moment.

Holly rolled her eyes, handing him a program. He eyed the cover critically; it was a relatively simple one of a man and woman in a sort of seductive, woman-dominant tableau, emblazoned with the word _Venus in Fur._

"Interesting," he murmured, flipping past the advertisements to the center of the program, where the summary was written. "'_Venus in Fur _goes behind the scenes at an audition, where a man and a woman blur the lines between fantasy and reality, seduction and power, love and sex,'" he read aloud. "'A crackling exploration of sexual control and desire, the play combines the playwrights rigor and wit." He chuckled lightly, looking up at Holly, who was absently flipping through the ads. "Not a show children would be allowed in to see, then."

"I'm curious to see what happens," she replied, not looking up. "Apparently it's quite good."

"Did you figure this out in all of your free time at work today?" Artemis asked sarcastically.

Holly raised an eyebrow, choosing not to reply, and the house lights dimmed.

The 90 minutes that followed were emblazoned with many different tones and mood. Not that the play was pornographic, Artemis found himself sinking deeply into the sexual exploration and laughing uncontrollably when the lead woman would slip a sly joke into the dialogue between her and the director. A bit to his embarrassment, he found that the show turned him on a little, reminding him with a slow, burning ferocity of the woman sitting next to him. Yet there was a sickening sense of reality between the lines, despite the two impromptu onstage lovers screwing behind the scenes of the 'audition' having nothing to do with the situation they were in together. But the time passed quickly, and Artemis found himself oddly sorry that the play was over when the house lights returned, lighting up the audience as they began to leave.

"That," he murmured into Holly's hair, where her head leaned on his shoulder, "was a fantastic choice."

She only smiled in return, leaning into his embrace, and then threw her head back to peck him on the jaw before standing up and shrugging her coat on. "Coming to dinner with me?"

"Do I need the blindfold again?" he asked, rising after her.

She rolled her eyes, whipping it from where it was tied around her wrist and into her back pocket. "I don't think so," she replied, taking his hand. "Not if you behave yourself."

He chuckled, muttered something about dominant females, and followed her out of the theatre, shaking a bit as he let go of Holly's hand to slip on gloves.

"Man it up, Jack."

"I am a delicate creature, Cher," Artemis replied, taking her hand again. "I must protect myself from the elements."

She only snorted in return, and they lapsed into comfortable silence as they wandered through streets, not minding the time as it began to grow late, knowing that because it was Christmas Eve and far below freezing, most people would be safe at home in their apartments, hidden away from the elements they were so enjoying. They did not particularly search for a place to settle and eat, but rather wandered from street to avenue, chatting aimlessly, simply enjoying each other's presence as their ears and noses slowly became pink, followed by their cheeks.

"You know what?" Holly asked, though it was obviously a rhetorical question. "I'm cold. Let's go find somewhere warm with food."

Artemis laughed softly at her blunt phrase, and made a soft sound of assent that was almost unheard over the city sounds. Not that Holly would have taken no for an answer.

She dragged him off of the avenue and onto a street, picking a small, pristine-looking hipster cafe tucked into alleyway. Artemis dutifully followed her in, his eyes following her body as she walked right up to the counter and started a conversation with the girl behind the counter.

_So much has changed here._

Holly waved him up to the counter, thrusting a menu into his hands, looking over hers while continuing to chat with the girl behind the counter, whose name was apparently Leslie.

"Oh... Jack, look. They have tortellini soup. Remember when Honor came over and tried to teach us how to cook that?"

Artemis peered over her menu to where her finger pointed, scanning then description of the soup before the dish clicked into place in his brain. "Oh, yes. That was the one I set the kitchen on fire with."

Leslie giggled but made no comment.

"It sounds good. I'm getting it."

"You do that, dear," Artemis replied, rolling his eyes with a small smile. "I'll just have coffee, please," he told Leslie, and then wandered off to find a table in the slightly crowded cafe. Holly followed a moment later, plopping down across the table from him.

"You need to eat," she reminded him.

He shrugged. "We have food at home. It makes more monetary sense."

"You? Worrying about money?"

He raised an eyebrow and she grinned, reaching out to take him by the jaw and kiss him across the table.

"Coffee?" a voice asked from above.

Artemis sighed, and Holly relinquished her grip on his jaw, letting him accept the steaming mug from the somewhat awkward teenage waiter. He took a sip before putting it down on the table, looking back at his significant other, who had taken to looking absently out the steam-fogged window. He reached into her line of view and dragged his palm over the condensation and wiping it away. She didn't change her view in the slightest as a hole in the steam opened up, revealing taxis and pedestrians hurrying to get away from the neon and out of the cold.

"Thanks," she murmured when he took his hand away. Artemis looked at his hand, which was covered in water, and realized that there were no napkins at the table. Knowing it was out of character for him to not have thought it through, he quickly took a mental run through his options and ended up wiping his wet hand on Holly's coat sleeve.

She looked down to see why he had touched her and then scowled at him, though he could tell from her face that it didn't really bother her as much as she pretended it did. She smacked the the top of his head, ruffling his hair so that it stood straight up, and then frowned.

"When's the last time you dyed your roots?"

"Three days ago. I was going to do it in the morning."

Holly's gaze travelled from his hair to his face, and she realized with a start that he was watching her intently, with a ferocity that felt like it was almost enough to make her brain melt in her skull.

"Thinking about something?" she asked, casually enough.

"Yes," Artemis replied, and then continued infuriatingly, "but when am I not?"

"Jack."

The waiter brought Holly's much-anticipated soup then, but she put it aside. "What is it?"

"Eat your food."

"What are you thinking?"

"I'll tell you if you eat."

She scowled, swishing her spoon around in her bowl, and then carefully raised a steaming-hot portion to her lips, which curved prettily to blow on the scalding liquid.

Artemis's next words were entirely unexpected.

"What is your opinion on children?"

Holly, who had just tipped the hot spoonful so that a tiny bit would trickle into her mouth, felt her hand jerk and coughed wildly as the entire steaming spoonful ran down her throat, burning it. She continued coughing violently, her eyes watering, while Artemis handed her a napkin and watched her impassively.

"Where..." she gasped, staring incredulously at him through the reflexive tears, "the _hell_... did _that _come from?"

"I was curious." Artemis acted shockingly cavalier, gently stirring his coffee, the spoon clinking against the side of the cup.

"Just curious, huh?" When his eyes did not meet hers, Holly realized that he was purposefully not raising his gaze. He was nervous then. Embarrassed. She reached across the table, placing her hand on top of his. "Just say what you're thinking."

"No."

"Jack —"

"You did not answer my question."

She sighed. "What do I think about children?" He just watched her as a response, and she continued on. "I don't think much about them, to be perfectly honest. They're not an option for me, so I don't consider it."

"I see."

Holly shot her hand out and snagged his fingers as he began to take his hand off of the table. "I was honest with you. Now tell me what you were thinking."

Artemis's eyes searched hers as if somehow trying to seek out a way to reply without actually speaking. Holly was about to speak up when he began to talk.

"If you ever desired a... child... there is a surgery that does tubal ligation — reverses the tying of the fallopian tubes. I did plentiful research, and for all intents and purposes it does appear that your _culture's_ method of tubal ligation surgery mimics ours."

Holly tightened her grip on his hands, the soup and coffee forgotten. "Are you trying to tell me that you want to have a _baby_?"

Artemis's tongue flicked over his lips, moistening them nervously. "I... yes. Yes, I suppose I am." He looked up at her, his expression one of honest concern, though what he had to be worried about, Holly could not fathom. "Obviously, not for quite some time, if we were to even begin to consider it. Years in the future perhaps, and in an entirely new place, of course. New York is hardly the place to raise a child. And of course once we're quite far off of the _technician's _radar. And, obviously, this is entirely hypothetical —"

"Stop."

"I... yes, I'm sorry. That was completely uncalled for."

Holly leaned in, looking him straight in the eyes, and kissed his cheek. "Careful. You're not acting like Jack." He lowered his gaze to the scratched wood of their table.

"I've just... been thinking about it. I know it's illogical, but..."

"Arty," she whispered, and he shot up, his eyes wide at the sound of his name in public. "How long have you kept this to yourself?"

His mouth opened and closed a few times without a sound, and then he closed his eyes, swallowing. "A while."

Holly's hands moved to cup his cheeks, forcing him to look at her. "You've changed so much," she breathed, an inch from his lips, "but you're still the same man I ran to when all the rest of the world had turned away from me." He leaned to kiss her, but she back up, remaining firm despite his slightly confused expression. "I had an amazing childhood, Jack, because I was free." She pulled his forehead to hers, and his fingers rose to cover hers. "I would be so scared that if we had a baby... I would be so scared that that child would never be able to have freedom because of the way we have to live."

"You never really answered my question," Artemis whispered, his eyelashes brushing against her cheekbones. Holly shuddered lightly before pulling back a little from his face, her thumbs brushing over the stubble gracing his skin.

"My opinion on children," she answered, "is that they're a blessing. But I think that any child we might have would be unhappy with the life it would lead."

He closed his eyes and nodded mutely.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said, his fingers contracting over hers, pulling her hands from his cheeks. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

"Do you honestly want one?"

"Or two," he replied, somewhat reluctantly. "There's always been the fantasy that every growing boy has."

"Seeing as I was never a growing boy, you'll have to tell me what that dream is."

He huffed a funny little laugh through his nose, brushing his lips against her nose. "You know... grow up, get a good job, get a nice girl, have a few kids, coach their soccer games, pay through the nose for their college educations..."

"Doesn't seem like a dream you would have had. More like world domination, I thought."

"It always made me feel horribly mundane, but it was a secret little dream of mine." He looked out the window, which had fogged back over from when he had wiped his hand across it. "Some part of me always wanted to be normal, and look at me now."

"About as far from normal as you can get, I'd say."

"Thank you," he breathed, though it had nothing to do with her last comment. "For understanding." He leaned in and captured her lips with his, closing his eyes and enjoying the strangely intimate setting of the cafe, and tasting the spice of Holly's breath mingling with the rich coffee on his pallet. She gripped him tightly, pulling him by his scarf as if she couldn't get him close enough over the table, her lips pressing hungrily against his, earning a chuckle from him.

"Anything else I can get you guys?"

Holly let go of Artemis with an incredulous expression on her face, slowly bringing her head around until she faced the awkward younger waiter standing uneasily at the head of the table, staring at them as if he had never seen a couple kiss in the cafe before.

Holly glared at him for a moment before her face split into a gigantic face smile.

The waiter blinked.

"We're good, thanks," she said, her voice coated with honey. Artemis put his face in his arms, his shoulders shaking silently.

The waiter nodded and turned to the right, then to the left, and back to the right before walking off. Holly rolled her eyes and pursed her lips at the sight of Artemis laughing over the mishap. She tugged a few stands of his hair until he sat up, his cheeks slightly pink.

"You're welcome," she said. "For understanding."

He tried very hard not to smirk and failed miserably.

"What's funny?"

"I... nothing." He smiled fondly at her. "It's just that after all this, you're still the woman I kidnapped all those years ago."

"Creeper," Holly sighed, pushing her now-empty soup bowl aside and tossing a couple of crinkled dollar bills on the table for whoever ended up cleaning it. "Are you ready to go?"

Artemis stood wordlessly, slipping his coat back over his arms. Holly did the same across the table from him, but stopped when she looked back at the re-fogged window, pondering it silently for a second before reaching over and scrawling a slightly misshapen smiley face on the window. Artemis rolled his eyes as she strode toward him, smiling fondly as she wiped her wet fingertips on the sleeve of his jacket before looping her arm through his.

"Homeward?" he asked, leading her to the door.

"To be honest, I'd rather walk a little longer," Holly replied, and so he opened the door, breaching the sound barrier between the street and the cafe. The barista waved as Holly and Artemis ventured once more into the cold.

"That place was nice," Holly mused. "We'll have to go there again sometime." She nudged him gently. "And then you'll actually eat something."

Artemis grimaced a bit. She sighed.

"You worry too much."

"Haven't I always?"

They were walking toward Hamilton Hills; not necessarily the safest neighborhood, Artemis knew, but he was not particularly concerned about what might or might not occur. Crime rate had been down the past couple of years due to new police incentive and whatnot. The most to occur would probably be a few attempts to buy Holly for an hour — or for that matter, Artemis — and perhaps a couple of attempted drug dealings. Nothing of consequence. It was nearing two in the morning, after all.

They walked in silence, and Artemis's mind traveled back to a night not too long ago. The night of the first winter snow in the city. A night when everything became clean and beautiful, trash and weeds and concrete hidden by a blanket of white. He and Holly had gone, yet again, for a walk around the city — a habit they seemed to have made — and had found themselves walking across the massive expanse of perilously supported concrete that was the gorgeous Brooklyn Bridge. Snow had lingered in their hair, melting against their coats and skin as they marched in silence, rather like they were now. Holly had seemed purposed at the time, determined, as if there were some goal awaiting her at the other side. Artemis didn't ask. She would have told him if she had wanted

They walked and walked, their legs beginning to burn a little, their breaths a little short from the constant uphill of the bridge. Holly's small feet had pattered quickly against the slick pavement. Artemis had gripped her hand tighter as if to reign her back, but she persisted, blazing forward until she reached the exact middle of the bridge, where she had abruptly stopped.

She had taken her hand away from Artemis, gripping a railing tightly, teetering over the edge of the pedestrian walkway. Below her, traffic roared like a beast, lights flashing by, horns blaring at a near constant rate. And she had stood there, her gaze fierce and focused somewhere far away, over the distant water. He asked her name once, and she did not respond. Once again he asked her, but instead of turning to him she had hiked one leg up over the fence and pulled herself onto one of the supporting beams, wobbling a little bit as she tested her restraints over the cars and trucks seething underneath her.

He had grabbed for her, but she was already making her way across the icy steel beam, hands out for balance, knees crouched for a low center of balance. Artemis had itched to go after her, but his palms had sweated and his head had spun when he had so much as leaned over the edge of the walkway to climb up.

She was a previous LEP major, wasn't she? Though stripped of her rank, she had been trained to be more agile than a cat. But how much ice could exist near the center of the earth? His heart had pounded as she had slowly stepped away, as if floating over the roiling mess beneath her, and he cried Holly, Holly, Holly.

Nearly there, Holly had stopped, turning precariously around to face him. A hand up as if to quell his stress, her eyes calming him slightly. She was in control.

A few more steps and she was there. She had gripped a cable in each hand, monkeying her way through a small matrix of them before she stood on the very edge of the bridge, standing over the East River, the freezing water far below her, a glittering sheet of black in the night. She had stood with her feet planted apart, her arms thrust back and gripping the iron cables, her coat flapping wildly in the North Canadian wind. And after a moment she had thrown her head back, and flung her fist into the air and screamed a raw, euphoric scream that Artemis could hear from back on the pedestrian bridge.

It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen, and it chilled him to the bone.

Her hair whipped around and her wild cry carried on for what seemed like forever before she calmed, lowering her hand and returning to a normal stance, always keeping that firm hand on the cable. Beneath her, cars began to slow, believing her joy to be the beginnings of a suicide attempt. And Holly had just stood there, and Artemis had just watched her, and thought of the three words he had never been able to tell her.

He was brought back to the present as Holly's hand tightened around his; he shot her a questioning glance out of the corner of his eyes. Her lips pursed in response, her stare remaining straight ahead. Artemis looked toward that direction. The nearest streetlight was burned out.

"Fairy?" he murmured.

An imperceptible shake of the had. "Footsteps sound human."

He listened. Heavy, agile footsteps on the pavement, perhaps fifty feet away. Gaining, it seemed.

"He might be in a hurry."

She managed to flash him a glare. "He's been following us for three blocks."

His hand squeezed her. "We've been through much more dangerous than an errant follower. What has you on edge?"

"My ears are tingling," she whispered, and he finally heard a trace of fear in her voice. "I've always trusted that more than any instinct."

He stiffened.

The footsteps were eager.

"I know you're talking about me," came a reedy voice from behind them, and Holly let go of Artemis's hand and whipped around, peering like a dear in the proverbial headlights into the street. It was empty except for the man, who grew closer every passing second. All that was visible was a silhouette, though it was obvious he wore a long coat. Guns, Artemis thought. Perfect for concealing guns.

He stopped twenty feet away.

"Holly Short," he called. "You're wanted underground."

Holly flinched. Artemis gripped her shoulder and pulled her back, stepping in front of her. She only pushed forward, refusing to let him play hero.

"Who sent you?"

The man did not answer. He did not seem able to. Artemis's eyes narrowed.

"Go back to where you came from," Artemis commanded."

"I apologize, Artemis Fowl," came the answer. "But I'm not allowed to do that."

"Not allowed...?" Holly whispered, and then cursed. "_Mesmerized._ If only I had magic left... goddamn pituitary gland..." She reached up and slowly began to unbutton her coat.

"You see, Major," the man went on, and Holly zeroed her gaze in on his hand, which twitched toward his coat pocket. "They couldn't send a team to get you, so I was sent. You're wanted underground."

"Run," Artemis whispered.

"Not a chance," she hissed back, looking around for any sign of life on the street. It was New York City, for God's sake. There had to be someone lurking in an alley or a doorway or looking out a window... but there was nothing. The burnt out streetlight ahead flickered to life.

Artemis made a small sound in the back of his throat, and Holly wheeled back around. The man, illuminated, was terrifyingly familiar, his hair longer and slicked back, his face cut to the side by a deep scar, his features older than the last time they had met, but undeniably familiar.

Billy Kong's stare was blank but frightening all the same. He had no memory, but it was hardwired into him, somehow, by the LEP to hunt Holly down in the city and take her down, literally.

"I'm not going underground," Holly said firmly, stepping up in front of Artemis. He touched the small of her back. She shook her head.

_Don't interfere._

There was a split second's worth of hesitation, as if Billy Kong had to debate his next move, but then his hand plunged for his coat pocket. Holly was ready.

She whipped out the gun at the same time as he did, her fingers flying over the gun as she cocked, aimed, and fired in unison with him, the concussions rocketing off of the walls of the buildings.

Her finger jerked the trigger three time, sending out identical bullets toward her target, before fear took over and her eyes squeezed tightly shut on the street and the man with the fired gun pointed right at her.

The smell of smoke began to fill the air.

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**Like I said... review, please! It makes me so happy. And just so you know, some of the next chapter was pre-written, and Spring Break for me is in... four days! So I will have the next chapter up most likely in a week or so.**


	18. Chapter 17

**CONTENT: language**

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**Chapter 17: Cold Shot**  
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The gun in Holly's hands was smoking, a silent thing of horror and beauty in the sudden, uncharacteristic silence of New York City. The smoke curled into the night air, a seemingly innocent, yet at the same time very dangerous entity, writhing as if in pain, dancing as if in euphoria. All brought by Holly's hand. Butler would be coming soon; she had no doubt that he would be there within five minutes. It was critical, someone pointing a gun at you, right? A critical situation called for three rounds. Three little motions. Three deadly shots.

But two bodies hit the ground instead of one.

It took Holly a moment to look down at Artemis's face, not yet conveying pain, but shock. A single bullet hole seeped blood over the lower left side of his chest, staining the fabric of his shirt a red so deep that it was almost black. The gun in the limp, dead hands of Billy Kong, lying on the other side of the sidewalk, smoke twisting calmly out of the barrel. Holly stared down at Artemis for a moment, unable to move until his face contorted with pain and he let out a low moan before coughing, flecks of blood speckling his lips. It was then that Holly dropped down next to him, grabbing his hand and digging her fingers into his hair, forcing him to look at her. His breathing was hitched and a bizarre, terrifying wheeze echoed through his lungs every time he tried to supply oxygen to his body. His eyes searched hers wildly, and she could see him trying to focus, trying to see through the haze of pain that surrounded him. Holly opened her mouth to speak, but her throat felt like she was having an allergic reaction; swollen, bloated.

"Say something," she managed to whisper. "Talk to me, Arty, keep yourself alert. Focus. Say something."

"Hydrogen," Artemis gasped, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to keep his lungs full. For a moment, Holly thought he was losing his mind until he continued. "Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neo —" He coughed violently, his eyes screwing shut as his body shook, forcing bloody chunks of tissue to congeal in his throat and spray grotesquely out of the wound. Holly felt a hot, burning tear drip down her nose.

"Okay, stop, stop talking," she said, her voice thick. "Just be as still as possible, Arty. I'm here, okay? Butler's going to be here soon. You're going to be okay. We're going to get you to a hospital and they're going to save you. You're going to be fine." She squeezed his hand, keeping eye contact with him, talking non-stop even though what she was saying was repetitive and somewhat nonsensical. It didn't matter. She had to keep him awake.

"Holly," Artemis wheezed, fighting unconsciousness. "Holly —"

"Don't talk!" Holly said sharply, the scalding tears sliding more frequently down her face. "Just stay awake, Artemis. Don't fall asleep. Oh, gods, if I only had magic —"

"Lung. Lower left middle lobe," Artemis choked out, despite Holly shushing him. "I don't have long."

"We're going to get you to a hospital, Artemis, you're going to be fine —"

"There's no way —" He coughed again, fighting violently for breath against the shudders that wracked his body, and Holly realized just how frail he really was as a small, involuntary whine emitted from his throat in response the pain he was in.

"Just hold on, baby," she whispered, sliding out of her coat and pressing down hard on his wound. "You'll be all right, Artemis. Just stay awake."

He groaned loudly, his spine curling so that his chest was arched into the air. She pressed him down, looking wildly around the street. Why had nobody come? Hadn't anyone heard the shots? Surely there had to be one person who was decent enough to have heard and come running.

But in a city of millions, there was nothing but Artemis's wheezing.

Holly turned her attention back to him, speaking low and urgently to the moaning man in her arms. His eyes were glassy, blood pushing gently at the corners of his mouth, threatening to overspill.

Running footsteps behind her, and panting. Holly snatched the gun from the cold pavement, whipping around to point it at the man sprinting her way. It took her a moment to recognize him, and she was incredibly happy that she had held off on the shot.

"Butler," she cried, dropping the gun right back onto the concrete. The man, so different than the Goliath she had known a year before, did not make any indication that he had heard her, and skidded the last yard on his knees, scooping Artemis out of Holly's arms and turning him so that the blood collecting in his mouth spilled out. Artemis sputtered, his head lolling.

"God damnit," Butler breathed.

"We need to get him to a hospital," Holly whispered, her voice thick. Why she was whispering she did not know. It wasn't like she had a real need to be quiet at the moment.

Butler cradled Artemis's limp form in his arm, the man's wheezes echoing off of the buildings, and then rose rapidly to his feet.

"There's a hospital nearby," he said in means of explanation, and then took off running. Holly followed him without hesitation, sprinting right past the dead man on the sidewalk, three bullet holes in his forehead.

But right now, Holly didn't care that she had aimed perfectly, because Artemis's breaths were shallow and rattling, and every few steps he audibly choked on blood.

Within three minutes Holly could see the doors of the Harlem Hospital Center. She charged underneath the awning after Butler, sparing a second's glance for the statue overhead; a man, woman, and two children, naked and covered by the caduceus — the universal sign of medicine.

There was general panic from the gentile population when Butler burst through the doors, screeching to a halt at the reception desk, nearly thrusting Artemis onto the counter.

"Emergency room," he huffed, out of breath from the short run. "Now."

The few men and women behind the desk were frozen from shock until another cough wracked Artemis's body, and a spray of blood fell over the desk. A man wrenched up one of the phones, calling for help over the intercoms, and the other attendants began to scramble for any sort of first aid to help the suffocating man on the desk.

While there was no longer blood in Artemis's mouth — perhaps he had had the consciousness to swallow it in order to stop it from blocking his airways — the hole in his chest exploded with blood every time he coughed, drawing a terrible rattling sound with each breath and gasp. The medical staff were plugging up the hole with bits of gauze from First-Aid kits behind the desk, the stuff turning red as soon as it was in.

Holly stood, hyper-aware and in a daze at the same time, her fingers clenched so tightly to the edge of the counter that she feared they would break. Small words and phrases filtered in — things like "blood transfusions" and "respiratory arrest" and "pneumothorax" and "immune suppression" — things Holly had never understood but that Artemis would have had he been in full consciousness to hear it. His eyes searched for something to lock on above him, glazed under the fluorescence. Holly couldn't tell if it was the lights that were washing out his face or the lack of blood.

And then the stretcher was there, and Artemis was hurriedly placed onto the stiff white sheets and whisked away, leaving Butler and Holly surrounded by confusion and residual panic at the administration desk.

"Excuse me?" came a voice, and the both tore their eyes from the stretcher as it made its way into the elevator. Beside them stood a small, mousy woman in blue scrubs clutching a clipboard to her chest. "Are you the couple who came in with that man?"

Holly and Butler just stared at her; both of their fronts were covered with Artemis's blood. After a minute, the woman got the message.

"Right... Well, if you'd come with me, I can take you to a place where you can be updated on his status."

"Updated," Butler parroted. "Yes."

The little woman turned around and walked briskly off. Butler and Holly followed mechanically, not realizing where they were going until she told them to sit down in a small, empty room outside of the emergency waiting room. Once she left, Butler immediately moved to one of the chairs lining the wall, his head dropping into his hands the moment he sat down. Holly stood for a moment before coming to sit at his side, her head resting on his upper arm.

"Are you okay?"

He shook his bald head wordlessly. Holly sat beside him and leaned her head onto his arm, closing her eyes against the semi-dark room, the blood pounding through her head. She was so tired...

The next thing she knew Butler was shaking her awake, and a shadow of a person was receding through the doorway.

"A doctoral assistant came by," he murmured. "Said he'll be in in a few minutes."

Holly rubbed her eyes, looking, fatigued even after sleep, around the room. "What time is it?"

"Just after four."

"We've been here a long time. Why haven't they been in to talk to us?"

Butler paused, his fingers twitching against his legs. "I suspect," he said, slowly, wearily, "that they're working very hard to keep him breathing."

"Why can't we go see him? Even through a window? Why would it take so long to put in a respirator or drain fluid or whatever the hell it is they do?"

"Christ, Holly," Butler growled, fists clenching. "I know just as much as you do."

She was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry."

"I shouldn't have gotten angry."

"I shouldn't have been needy."

Butler gave her a one-armed hug, squeezing her against what was once a shoulder well-padded with muscle.

The room was chilly, sterilized air blowing from the vents directly above them. Holly shrunk against Butler when she realized how warm he was, and understood, just a little bit, why he had been the perfect bodyguard.

"What will you do," she whispered, "if in a few hours you don't have anyone to protect?"

"I'm not going to think about that right now," Butler replied, stony-faced. "The assistant looked pretty optimistic. I'm going to believe that he'll be fine. I won't let him out of my sight again."

At that moment a short African-American woman in white scrubs slipped through the doorway, closing it softly behind her.

"Are you the family of Jack Dunbar?"

"Something like that," Butler answered. "What's happening?"

The doctor breathed out heavily through her nose. "Though he has been responding to nerve stimuli, Mr. Dunbar is currently unresponsive to conscious stimuli. This would not be a problem if not for the brain damage he attained before we were able to drain his lungs of blood and get oxygen back into him."

The doctor let this sink in for a moment before Holly made a choking sound in the back of her throat.

"Brain damage?" Butler whispered.

The doctor nodded gravely. "I'm very sorry. We're doing all that we can, but we don't expect him to make it through the day."

"Why?" Holly snapped, rising to stand squarely in front of the doctor. "Surely you people's medical technology isn't so bad that you can't revive a man that's just been shot?"

Butler touched her lower back in warning.

The doctor seemed a little thrown by her response, but stood her ground. "All of his organ systems are failing due to lack of oxygen, ma'am. We've already performed emergency non-consensual surgery to patch the holes in his lung and installed a tracheal oxygen tube into his throat in order to aid with his breathing, but his full system seems to be too damaged to take any treatment of that sort. He's lost most function in his brain, liver, and kidneys, and it is extremely unlikely that they'll be revived."

Holly just stared. Butler's hand was frozen on her back.

"I'm sorry."

Holly broke out of her reverie. "Couldn't you do an organ transplant?"

"The waiting list for organ donors is very long, and there is no chance that we would find a close enough match in time even if there were no waiting list. With his blood currently composed almost entirely of donations, his immune system would be most likely to reject even the closest match, even under immune-suppressor drugs, which he's already on to keep his new blood from being attacked."

"Then... then maybe surgery?" Holly was blindly clawing at loose ends, trying to find a solution because this couldn't be the end. It wasn't how it was supposed to end. Not for Artemis Fowl. "You can fix the damaged parts?"

The doctor sighed, practiced in patience. "If his brain hadn't been without oxygen for so long, he would have been able to be treated. But unless you want to keep him in a vegetative state for the rest of his life, he won't last another 24 hours."

"That's impossible."

She pursed her lips, blinking more than necessary in an attempt to remain calm. "It's very possible for any human being, and it's reality in his case."

"No." Holly stepped forward, ignoring Butler's small sound of caution. "It's not _right_. You're a doctor, god damn it. Do something!"

The doctor drew herself up to her full height. "Ma'am you are not the only one who has had someone die in this hospital today —"

Holly lost it.

"You don't know!" she screeched, leaping up onto one of the chair, pointing an accusatory finger at the shocked doctor. "You don't know anything. You don't know anything of what we've been through or what's happened —"

"Ma'am, I am going to have to ask you to step outside."

Butler's fingers closed gently around her ankle. "Holly —"

"You don't know what this _feels _like!" Holly yelled, gesticulating wildly at nothing in particular. "All you do is fucking sugarcoat everything you tell people —"

The doctor's face was controlled, stern and unforgiving. "Ma'am, I very must suggest you go outside and cool down before I have to call security —"

"And then you go home, every night, to your fucking family —"

Butler's grip on her leg tightened. "Holly!"

"Well, I don't _have _that option!"

"Ma'am —"

But Holly had wrenched her leg out of Butler's grip and latched onto the collar of the doctor's scrubs. "Save him," she whispered. "I don't care what you have to do or how much it'll cost. We can pay, whatever it is. Just... please. Just save his life."

The doctor regarded her coldly, and then her face softened just a little. "We're trying our very hardest. You need to understand that."

Holly kept eye contact with the woman she was clutching, her eyes widening as they became wet again, her mouth opening and closing in silent disbelief. She felt hands at her waist, and Butler pulled her back to her seat, wrenching her fingers loose of the doctor's collar. Holly sat in the chair, shrinking into herself, keeping her eyes trained on her feet.

"Once we know that there's nothing more that we can do, you will be allowed to see him."

"Thank you," she heard Butler mutter, and there were footsteps as the doctor left the room. She heard him hesitate, and then the popping of joints and the movement of clothing as he knelt in front of her.

"Holly," he whispered. "Look at me, please."

She did as he asked, trying desperately not to let her tears overspill. Butler, ever careful and tender, noticed, and wiped away the droplets that clung to her eyelashes.

"What you did back there was reckless. Had you continued like that, we most likely would not have been able to see Artemis before... before he's gone."

"But it's not fair," she gasped, the dam finally breaking and tears tracking down her face. "It's not fair. That bullet was mine. It was supposed to hit me."

Butler pulled her head down to his shoulder, letting her cry against the faded wool sweater he was wearing. "That may or may not be true," he murmured, rubbing her back. "It was Billy Kong, wasn't it? I saw the body on the sidewalk. I'm guessing you two were standing very close together and that he was _mesmerized_, and being that Kong has a huge grudge against Artemis... well, let's just say that he could have been pointing the gun at either of you."

"But why not me? I was the one he was supposed to be after, right?" Holly pulled her head up from Butler's shoulder, looking him in the eyes as if they offered some kind of answer of retribution. "Right?"

"Holly," Butler said with patience. "We don't know these things. If we knew, they would never happen in the first place."

"Killing him felt so awful," she breathed. "I'm really a homicidal maniac now, aren't I?"

"No," Butler replied firmly. "You will never be a homicidal maniac, Holly. What you did was out of self-defense, and nothing more."

"But I _killed _him, Butler —"

"And he's so much killed as Artemis," Butler replied, his voice hitching a little at the end.

Holly grabbed the corner of his jaw on both sides, forcing his head to tilt back at an odd angle. "How can you take this shit so calmly?"

"Because," he said in an undertone fused with powerful, humbling emotion, "I have to believe that he's going to make it through. I _have _to. It's been the point of my existence since the day he was born."

"Oh gods, Butler," Holly choked out, and that was all she was able to manage before she dissolved into sniffles again.

"Just hope," Butler whispered against her hair. "All you can do is hope."

Footsteps at the doorway. They looked up. A young man in light purple scrubs was leaning into the room, giving them a sort of sympathetic smile, two packages in his hand.

"How're we doing in here?" he asked.

"Fantastic," Holly spat, glaring venomously.

Had Holly been in a completely sane state of mind, she would have had to give the man props; his friendly aura didn't waver in the slightest at her tone. He held out the two packages. "I was told to tell you Shareen will be in in a minute to take you to see Mr. Dunbar, but when I came over here and peeked through the door, I saw you both had blood on you." He shrugged a bit. "I don't know why no one's come over about it before, but I thought you might like a change of clothes."

Holly and Butler glanced at each other's fronts; they both had dried brownish-red splotches all over themselves. Holly felt her stomach heave a bit at the sight of Artemis's blood covering her dark jeans.

Butler stood, taking the plastic-covered mystery clothing from the nurse. "Thank you. How is he?"

The man shrugged again, dwarfed by Butler's height. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't have information on that." He flicked his name tag. "I'm an NYU student nurse. Not allowed to work with ICU patients yet."

Butler's eyes widened and Holly's chair hit the wall with a bang as she stood up.

"He's in the ICU?" she demanded, marching over. "As in the Intensive Care Unit?"

The student nurse hesitated. "You weren't... told that?"

Butler's iron grip closed over his shoulder, his voice a deep, threatening rumble. "Is he going to live?"

The small man's mouth moved wordlessly as he struggled to find something he was allowed to say. "I... I don't know," he whispered after a moment, putting his hands up as if to appear non-threatening. "I primarily work ER but they just had me come talk to you in a free moment. I honestly don't know, but..." He winced slightly. "They don't normally let people visit ICU patients." He tried to worm out of Butler's grip, but the bodyguard wasn't letting him go. "I'm sorry," he said, struggling a bit harder, "but there are a dozen patients that need to be tended to over in the ER, and I really do have to get back."

Butler slowly released him, and he backed out the doorway, trying to regain his friendly aura. "Change clothes," he said softly, pleadingly. "I wish I could help you more than that, but I can't. I wish you the best."

And with that, he turned and walked away quickly, leaving Butler and Holly standing in the doorway, desperate for more information. After a moment, Holly took one of the packages from Butler.

Her hands shook as she ripped open the plastic that housed the new clothes, pulling the thin purple fabric shoddily out of the packaging. Butler stood, vacant eyed in the doorway, not even noticing as she stripped down and replaced her date-clothing with the student-nurse scrubs.

"You should change."

Butler ripped his eyes away from the waiting room, looking at the clothing in his hands as if he didn't remember taking it from the nurse. He changed quickly in the half light, tossing his ruined sweater into the trash can as if it burned him to touch it. He left his slacks and white wife beater on, as all of the blood had gotten caught in his sweater when he had run with Artemis in cradled in his arms.

True to the word of the student nurse, a woman peered around the doorway not a minute after Butler finished changing.

"Goodness, it's dark in here," she muttered, squinting at them. "How are things with you?"

"Fine," Butler said, his voice taut. "Are you Shareen?"

"Yes I am," she replied, rising up to her full height; her scrubs were the blue of an ordinary floor nurse. "You sure you want to see him, sir? And ma'am," she added, catching sight of Holly behind Butler.

"Please," Holly said, though it was more of a demand than a request.

"All right," Shareen said, her voice a little chagrined. "Follow me, please, and stick close to the wall."

She led them past the people in the adjoining, public waiting room, filled with broken arms and stomach flu and infected bee stings, and then out through a small service hallway until they reached the elevator bank. Shareen called up the elevator and ensured that they had it to themselves. They rode three floors up in silence, muzak playing pleasantly over the tinny speakers, as if hoping to put them into a cheery mood as they traipsed into the ICU.

It was full of people in different colored scrubs; blue for nurses, white for doctors, purple for the student nurses, and maroon for the technicians and desk attendants. They rushed around, calling to each other, issuing orders, delivering carts of medicine and making a general turmoiled sea of multicolored chaos. Across an island of desks and counters, a man leaned over the barrier, his face red, his eyes bloodshot, tears streaming furiously down his cheeks.

"God damn it, you bastards! You bring my little girl back, bring her back, please, please, she's all I have!"

Holly felt sick to her stomach. Shareen encouraged them to once more stay near the wall.

They passed a withered old hispanic man in a wheelchair, looking up at a nurse in obvious disbelief.

"What do you mean, my wife is dead?" he asked, his voice uncomprehending. "I do not understand, she cannot be dead. She is not dead, you made a mistake, you made a mistake."

Shareen pulled them away from the busy main heart of the unit, leading them down an artery. There was rush here. No time for leisurely activity in this hall. Shareen sighed heavily, leaning over the counter of the nurse's station.

"Dunbar?"

Paper shuffled, and red curly hair bobbed as the woman behind the desk searched her computer screen. "435."

Shareen pushed away from the desk and crossed the churning hallway, leading Butler and Holly into a vein, skinnier and shorter, with less doors on it. 430, 431, 432...

"435, Jack Dunbar," Shareen announced, but stopped flat in front of the door. "I'll tell you like it is, because it don't seem like anyone else has yet." She stood with her hands on her hips, frown lines circling her lips and lining her forehead. "We don't expect him to make it past eight this morning."

"But it's just past five," Holly whispered, and Shareen nodded, her expression reproachful.

"I know, baby, I know," Shareen said. "I don't know who wouldn't allow you clearance to come up to see him. They haven't been working on him for about an hour now." She leaned back and peeked through the window, observing the man they could not see. "Looks like he's just hooked up to machines that are puttin' artificial life in him now. They're on a circuit to slowly let him off the oxygen and such so that he'll die painlessly."

Holly closed her eyes.

"I see a lot of death in here," Shareen said. "And every single one hurts me to the core. Just know, when he passes, that we tried our damn hardest to save his life. We did everything."

Holly felt a hand on her shoulder and turned slowly. A tall, horsey-looking woman stood over her. "He regained consciousness a few times," she added, patting Butler on the back. "Less and less as time went on, and a little more delirious every time, talking nonsense and such. He hasn't woken for an hour and a half."

"Thank you." Butler's voice was obviously strained to the point of breaking. Shareen seemed to understand this and opened the door, pushing it backward into the small, windowless room.

What was laying on the bed was nothing that even came close to looking like Artemis Fowl.

The shrunken form of a man was nearly lost in the hospital bedding and tubes embezzling his arms, his chalky, sickly looking skin seemingly bloodless. A tube sprouted from his neck, presumably pumping oxygen into him, and a clear mask covered his mouth and nose, both emitting puffs of air every time the man's chest rose and fell. A terrifying grinding echoed through the room every time he breathed. Somehow, Holly realized that he wasn't breathing for the machine. The machine was breathing for him.

Shareen closed the door behind them, leaving them alone in the room with the near-dead man on the bed.

Wordlessly they took their places on either side of the bedside, unable to take their eyes away from the awful sight in front of them. Artemis Fowl couldn't end like this. Not unconscious in a hospital bed buried in the middle of New York City, insignificant and uncared for. Artemis Fowl's life was supposed to end in a blaze of glory, some triumphant moment where he knew he had won, and that no matter where things went from the moment he perished doing what he loved, he would have been the winner in the end.

Never like this.

They sat there, and stared.

Time passed.

They could not speak.

The heart monitor beeped sluggishly.

And then the door slammed open.

Juliet stood eagle-spread in the doorway, chest heaving, hair a tangled halo of black strands, eyes wide, eyeliner smudged down her face.

"I was... asleep," she gasped, eyes locked on Artemis. "Didn't... hear my phone. Came... as soon as... I could."

Butler held out his arms, and his younger sister hesitated only a second before flying into them, squeezing him tightly. Holly looked away, her hand reaching up to touch the bony fingers lying limply on the sheets in front of her. Not half a day ago, those fingers had been so strong, gripping hers tightly as they had crossed Broadway together.

Juliet sat at the end of the bed, hands folded in her lap, and they waited as the minutes began to fly by. From time to time, Artemis's lips would move underneath his mask, or his eyes would flick around behind his closed eyelids, but he remained steadily dead to the world.

The room was bland. Mustard-yellow wallpaper adorned the space, the tiles permanently stained by medicines the bodily fluids of anonymous people. The sheets forming the mound on the bed were tan with a pinkish hue, a rarely-used TV mounted in the corner. Brown cabinets. Brown chairs. Brown.

Artemis was too pale to fit into this room.

Holly became aware that she was stroking the bones in the back of his hand, making a pattern of sort; up, stroking left to right, and then down, stroking right to left, over and over and over again, her fingertips tracing the soft, pale skin that had once brushed over her body with ease and confidence in the throes of passion that made up their nights. Once upon a time, they had been invincible. Once upon a time.

And after an hour of waiting for nothing had passed, the monitor beeping and Artemis's breath grinding and the clacking of passing nurses' shoes and the squeaking of medicine carts out in the hallway, he woke.

Artemis's eyes slid slowly open, surveying the tan panels that made up the ceiling, observing as he always did. Eventually his eyes traveled to the person who was closest to where his eyes were at the moment; Butler, his tall frame bent over him, his expression more worried than they had ever been in his life.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, his voice rumbling through the thick silence of the room.

Artemis tried to reply; his throat moved around the tube and through the oxygen mask his lips could be seen parting, but no sound came out. Holly put a hand on his forehead, her fingers still trembling. Artemis's gaze traveled slowly to her face, and she could see in his eyes that he knew the treatment hadn't worked. He knew he was going to die before they could even tell him that Shareen and the doctor and all the nurses and the heart monitor and his own breathing had let them know that he wasn't going to make it.

But in a way, this made it final.

"No, Artemis," she whispered, her voice becoming thick again as his face blurred through her tears that threatened once again to spill over her tensed eyelids. "No, please. Please."

He tried to speak again, but though a low, muffled wheeze came from his throat he remained speechless. Holly made her shaking fingers run through his hair, savoring the smooth feeling as her hand brushed through the straight, slick strands. Artemis closed his eyes, nuzzling his head into her hand, and Holly felt her fingers grip his hair in a knot. She bent over, her other hand taking his, careful not to touch his IV, and rested her head on his shoulder, her shoulders shaking as the first sobs began to wrack through her body. Vaguely she registered another strange, alien sound, and after a moment she realized she was hearing something she had subconsciously hoped she would never have to; Butler was crying as well, his hand grasping Artemis's other one, slumped over his charge, who was never supposed to die before him. Tears dripped down the bodyguard's nose, dripping onto the sheets over the dying man lying in the hospital bed. Juliet turned away, her shoulders hunched.

Artemis's breathing, despite the mask pumping oxygen into his body, grew more and more labored, whether out of panic or out of organ failure Holly didn't know. He opened his eyes, searching around until he found Holly again. She felt like her face was going to explode off of her head; it felt hot and swollen, but she tried to stop crying and give him a small smile. He groaned softly, and her fingers pulled out of his hair and began tracing his facial features. He closed his eyes again as her fingertips brushed across his forehead and traced his eyelids and traveled down his nose until the oxygen mask stopped their progress.

"I know how hard you tried," Holly whispered through the swelling of her throat. Artemis opened his eyes again, searching her face, his energy seeping away as the beeping of the heart monitor gradually began to slow. "I know how much you worked your whole damn life to be perfect, and I can tell you right now, Artemis Fowl, that you _are_ perfect." She gritted her teeth, trying to keep it together to squeeze out the last words. "I'm going to miss you so much."

Artemis made a small, whisper-like sound in the back of his throat, and Holly shushed him quietly, noticing the glistening tears gathering in his slightly frantic eyes. "Don't be scared," she said. "If there's a heaven, Arty..." She couldn't speak any more, and lay her head next to his hip, tracing the lines in his hands as she cried.

For a while there was silence, and then a tortured voice rang through the room. "I'm so sorry, Artemis," Butler said, and Holly looked up from Artemis's hand. "I should have been there. I would have been, I just... It was inexcusable. You shouldn't be the one like this, it should be me, I —"

He was silenced as Artemis weakly reached up and touched his cheek, his eyes quiet and staring deep into the dark blue of his bodyguard's. Butler slowly brought his hand up to Artemis's and took it, closing his eyes and bringing the young man's loose fist to his lips. He held it there for a moment, tears tracking down his face, and then whispered something only Artemis could hear. Artemis let go, pointing feebly to Juliet. Butler's hand brushed her back and she turned back around to face Artemis, her mascara running in rivers down her cheeks. Artemis just stared at her, life beginning to fade from his eyes, and she nodded.

"I'll call them," she said, and Holly knew that she meant the Fowl family, sleeping peacefully back in Ireland, their hearts almost healed from Artemis's supposed plane-crash death more than a year before. But even though the months and months had passed, Artemis wasn't supposed to be dying now. He had years left to him; years to smile, laugh, and cherish. Holly sniffed, her breath shuddering, and Artemis's last gaze turned to her.

"Arty," she whispered, and he brought his hand slowly across his body to hers, gripping is as tightly as a dying man could. They held it for a moment, their gazes connecting as fake green locked on fake brown, knowing that beneath was a heterochromatic pair of hazel and blue eyes to each. A connection, no matter what happened.

She felt his fingers move, and looked down to see his hand palm-up, his middle and ring fingers curling as if to make a fist, but leaving the thumb, index, and pinky up. Sign language. The first thing everybody learned. Holly brought his hand to her lips, crying shamelessly, and kissed his palm as Artemis's hand uncurled.

The first and last time he would ever say "I love you" in his life.

"I love you, Artemis Fowl," Holly said in a hoarse, thick whisper. "I've loved you since before I met you." His eyes were becoming unfocused, and Holly gripped his hand tighter. "Stay with me, Artemis, please." His eyes began to close. "Please, Arty, please, I can't —" Her voice cut off as his grip loosened. "No! Artemis, no! I can't do this without you! Artemis!"

The heart monitor flatlined.

Holly collapsed to the floor, Artemis's slack hand slipping from hers, sobbing hysterically. She had never heard the sound of real, pure agony before, but it was emitting from her lips, and she heard Butler's chokes above her, and Juliet's gasping cries. It was pure horror, pure pain, pure shock and reality and terror.

It was more real than any of them could have imagined.

Above them, Foaly, unnoticed, bit his lip and remotely shut of the hospital room television.

* * *

**Props to Kit Heart for getting what was going down this chapter at a level that was absolutely creepy. Right down to the sign language. If I didn't know better, I'd think she read my mind... or hacked my computer to see what I had prewritten.**

**So. I imagine I'll get a lot of, er... _angry_ reviews for this chapter, but it's not over yet. Not nearly over. So whether your pissed, amused, or apathetic... review, please?  
**


	19. Chapter 18

**I'm baaaack! **

**Whew, this update was shamefully long (almost two months!!! I am a terrible, terrible person) in coming. First order of business: thank you to all of you who reviewed — past the 200 mark! — and messaged me saying "Um, hello? Matt? Where are you?" Secondly: I am so unbelievably sorry, but life sort of exploded for a while. I hit a few speed bumps, overcame most of them, and came out of it with a bit of a bruised ego but a big smile. Thirdly: this is the last chapter-chapter of HTPW. Next is the epilogue... and then you won't read from me for a while unless you read fics in the M section. Because I will do a ficlet between stories for those of you who are sick of this pairing, and also to keep myself interested.**

**So... here we go!**

* * *

Chapter 18: All is Understood

Holly cried. She cried as the first nurse came in, triggered by the heart monitor's flat line, and called for a doctor. She cried as the doctors came in, inspecting the stitched tear in Artemis's chest and opening the man-made wound to inspect the surgically treated lung. She cried as they declared it useless to try and revive him, saying that the lack of oxygen over the long run from when the bullet had first struck his flesh a millennium ago had slowly suffocated his brain. She cried as they left the room, not even sharing a condolence to the three grieving people they were leaving. She cried as a new nurse came in and slipped out Artemis's IV, now pumping painkiller and immune suppressor drugs into a corpse, and took off the oxygen mask, leaving the tube in his throat. She cried as his arms were folded over his stomach and the sheet was brought over his head, covering his body in a cocoon of pure white. She cried as a warm, slim hand touched her shoulder, and she heard the nurse descend.

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" came a soft voice. It was disgusting; she wondered how many times the nurse had said that today, wondered how many people she had pretended to grieve with, wondered how many lives she had watched end from the sidelines. It repulsed her, and underneath the grief Holly was aware of the anger pulsing through her veins. She was furious; at this nurse, for pretending, at Billy Kong, at whoever had sent him, at Trouble, at the People, at the world and everything that had ever happened. But she was mostly angry with herself for _letting_ it happen.

So Holly stopped crying for a moment.

The nurse's supposedly soothing tones faltered as Holly reached a hand up and shoved her away, causing her to fall from the balls of her feet to her rump, staring in shock as Holly jumped up, sparing one last glance for the cold mound on the bed that was the covered shell of Artemis Fowl before wheeling around and sprinting out of the room. She didn't care where she was going. She didn't care, she didn't care, she didn't care as long as she didn't have to feel anymore. People yelled at her to stop, but her feet pounded over the tan tile floor and she was back in the cell block again, running for her life, her breath fast and the tears starting their rapid flow again. She jumped down the stairs, aware that there were no footsteps following her now. When she had been running from prison she had thought she was really alone in the world, but at least she had had people looking for her. Now, she was only followed by silence.

She burst through the automatic doors before they had a chance to open, and the glass shattered to let her through. She heard shouts and felt the blood slipping over her skin like a tickling caress and the sound of the New York traffic hit her and she ran like a bat out of hell. She sprinted across Malcom X Boulevard, not caring that cars were swerving to avoid her, screeching to a halt to stop from killing her too. But she wanted to scream at them to kill her too, that he had never deserved to die over her, he, who was barely out of childhood, laying still and cold in an uncaring place, and she had left, she had left him, she was a murderer after all, since the bullet had been meant for her and the sentences were running together as she screamed and screamed and screamed and the streets blurred by and people grabbed at her and the taxis honked and the subway screamed and waves crashed on the shore and volcanoes erupted and bombs exploded and then there was grass underneath her feet, sloping into a hill so fast that her feet slipped and she fell head over heels, round and round and round until the world was still and quiet and she was able to curl into herself and wish to die, hoping that maybe it would come true.

_"Good evening, Captain Short. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I've been expecting you."_

Holly's head shot up, her fingers clawing blindly at the grass as she gasped for breath. She had heard him, he was there, his voice... higher pitched, colder, younger... Artemis...

"_I suppose, after what I did, that I can't really expect any consideration."_

Really, really, she heard him... where was he? Why was his voice so steely, a void of emotion? Why could she see the joggers and the homeless man, but not see her best friend, her lover, her Artemis?

"_The last adventure. No more hurting people." _

That had been him, hadn't it? Behind her, somewhere, perhaps in the bushes, or hiding beyond the park bench for some silly reason, speaking cryptic nonsense as he always did. Of course it wasn't the last adventure. He was Artemis, he had found a way back, and he was here...

And she saw him from behind closed eyelids, his face young and pale, hallowed and serious but still ridiculously youthful, something of a costumed child on Halloween with that suit of his. He raised an eyebrow and gave her that telltale smirk, the tips of his incisors peeking out from the corners of his smile.

_The last adventure..._

"Cher?"

It was a voice that was closer than any other voice she had heard, and two hands grabbed her shoulders. "Cher? Cher?" She opened her eyes, her muscles aching from squeezing her face so hard, hoping, if only for a moment, and saw Honor's sweaty face blurring in front of her, and felt the clammy hands on her cheeks, gripping her skin as if trying to pull her out of a stupor. Holly's hopes were dashed; of course it wouldn't be the face she wanted so badly to see alive, _his _face. "Cher, sweetheart? Can you hear me, hon?"

Holly shook her head, closing her eyes again. "I'm not – I'm not Cher, I'm Holly, I'm Holly, I'm Holly…"

"What are you talking about? Where's Jack, he can help –"

"I'm sick of hiding!" Holly shouted, pulling herself up from the grass, vaguely noticing that Honor was dressed for running and remembering vaguely that she had invited Artemis not two weeks ago to run with her; an offer he had politely declined. It sent a stab of pain through her gut. "He's dead, Honor, he's – oh, Gods, he's dead, he's dead, he's gone…"

"Jack…?"

"Artemis," she gasped. "Artemis, Arty…" She broke down and fell to her knees again, and Honor rose simultaneously to catch her, her thin arms wrapping around Holly protectively.

"Let's get you to my place," Honor said. "We'll get you there, and calm you down and then call Jack, all right?"

Holly could only tremble.

Gray opened the door to the apartment when Honor kicked it and hollered for him to let her in an hour later, his eyes wide when he took in blank-eyed Holly, shaking, tears coursing down her face. Honor, surprisingly strong for her skinny frame, dragged Holly into the apartment, pushing her onto the threadbare couch that she had once sat on with Artemis. Honor ordered Gray to stay with her, and the boy, looking positively terrified, stood awkwardly, afraid to look at the wetness on her face or the clenched position of pain her limbs had taken on. Honor returned within moments with a blanket and forced Holly to lie down, draping the warm material over her and laying a hand on her feverish forehead.

"Gray, go put on some tea, will you?"

"What kind?" he asked.

Through her haze, Holly felt Honor's fingertips running slowly through the hair that had fallen out of her ponytail, and closed her eyes, sinking into the blackness that was pulling at her body, her muscles, her organs, her bones, and the shadows that wanted to steal away her filaments and fibers, her cells and her blood, her breath and her life. Life was stealing her away.

"We're going to call Jack and get him to come over, okay?" Honor said softly as the sun broke through the window, casting a fiery orange glow over the dingy living room. She felt the heat on her face, burning her, slowly burning her away. "He's going to come and get you and everything will be fine, Cher. Gray's making you tea. Do you want honey ginseng?"

"Earl Grey," Holly whispered, and then the shadows of unconsciousness slipped past her lips, sliding down her throat and taking her far, far away.

* * *

When she woke up the light was fading from the room, and she wondered briefly where she was before the image of blood spilling over cold pavement flashed before her and she remembered that life was over. Holly curled up on Honor's old couch, clutching at the blanket that was a poor replacement for Artemis's warm, skinny body as she felt her throat close, her face growing hot again as she remembered how the heart monitor had slowly declined and his eyes had for once lost their keen focus, the blue no longer piercing, his gaze trained dully on hers as he slipped away into nothingness. She gritted her teeth as nausea overcame her, and she remembered that she hadn't eaten in a long time, but what did it matter? Artemis could no longer taste, or feel hunger pains, or experience the content, tight feeling of being completely full. Why should she?

She stood up shakily, her eyes, distorted by the layer of salt water over them, traveling around the room, taking in the cold tea cup on the box next to the couch, her jacket, folded carefully on the floor, and her shoes, sitting by the wall. Silently, so that Honor wouldn't hear, Holly slipped the shoes on and gathered her coat in her arms, her hands trembling from the sheer effort of trying not to break down in a heap.

"Where are you going?"

Holly jumped; she hadn't noticed Gray sitting behind the couch, waiting silently for something unknown. His wide, curious eyes burned. Too much like the child she had been kidnapped by, so many years ago.

"Dunno," she muttered. Her voice was hoarse, and cracked a bit.

"Honor called Jack," he said. "Got voicemail for your home and his cell. Where is he?"

Holly didn't answer, and instead slipped her coat on.

"Honor's picking up dinner. You can stay, if you want. We'll find him, Cher, don't worry. I'm sure that everything's okay."

What a childish thing to say. Expected, seeing that Gray was a child, after all, but still horribly innocent. It broke what little was left of her heart to shatter that little bubble of innocence, but she couldn't lie to that inquisitive face.

"Jack's dead. I'm going to a friend's place. I'll spend the night there." Not taking one last look at his face, Holly turned and headed for the door.

"We won't see you again, will we?"

Gray's voice was terribly small, and Holly stopped with her hand on the doorknob, unable to look at his thin face.

"No," she said. "I'm not coming back, Gray."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm..." She sighed, her grip on the handle tightening. "I can't tell you that Gray."

"Why not?" His voice had an almost whiny quality to it, and she realized that he was fighting to keep tears away.

"Because you can't follow," she said, and opened the door.

"Are you going to hurt yourself?" There were footsteps, and his long fingers, so much like Artemis's, wrapped tightly around her hand. Her hear lurched. "Please don't hurt yourself, Cher, please —"

She tried to wrench from his grip. The air was almost impossible to breathe. She had to get back to Butler; she couldn't just sit here and wallow in self-pity, no matter how much it felt like she was drowning in oxygen. "I won't, Gray. But I need to go —"

"Promise."

Holly made herself turn around and look Gray straight in the wide, terrified eyes. "I swear to you," she said. "Now get back inside."

He stared at her a moment more before backing into the apartment and closing the door silently. It was nearly five minutes until Holly could stop staring at the chipped paint on the door and make her way down the silent hallway.

* * *

It was so quiet that it seemed as though life had been put on pause. The normal city sounds of New York were gone, replaced by some sort of pressurized silence that burned their skin and pushed their eyes and eardrums deep into their skulls. Holly had walked silently into the apartment nearly four hours ago at 5:00, and presently this left Holly, Butler, and Juliet sitting, nearly as dead as Artemis, in Butler's threadbare living room.

Holly knew she wouldn't be going back to the apartment she and Artemis had shared; there were too many memories in the sunlight that would stream through the windows as a storm ended, and the smooth, dark wood of the floor, and the strange, beautiful poem on the wall that Artemis had never thought to explain to her. Too many memories of laughter, of burning things, of making love deep below the covers, of thinking of home, of trying to ignore the sound of the headboard next door, of smelling the sweet smoke of marijuana whenever Honor would visit, of wrestling on the living room floor, of drinking cheap vodka late into the night. Once trinkets in Holly's mind that she thought she would treasure forever, these memories ripped through the cavity in her chest where her heart used to be.

Butler sat across the room from her, his red-rimmed eyes staring blankly at the wall adjacent to him, his brain slowly shutting down as his body realized that his reason for existence was gone. There was an unexpected pain in the base of his skull, as if the lack of a beating heart was drilling itself into his brain, filling him with flashes of slick black hair and passionate blue eyes. The moment he had first held that tiny body and looked into those magnificent eyes staring back at him — an oddity, the nurses had said, to have his eyes open within minutes of birth — his center of life had shifted from his own to the wishes and protection of that new, bright life in his arms. And when he had first spoken, looking up from his dictionary to say very sharply, "Butler, could you fetch me a magnifying glass?" Butler had felt pride swell in him as the child he had fostered from birth, the child who had never spoke more than two words together in his life, most of those being no more than four letters, had given his first entire, sophisticated sentence to him. And as he had realized that he could trust his bodyguard with his modesty, knowing that Butler wouldn't care if Artemis had to strip down after wandering around the grounds and getting lost as it had begun to rain, Butler chasing him down and finding him huddled, shivering and crying, in the mud half a mile from the house. And as he had stood on the stage for his first Nobel at eight years old, cool and nonchalant to the gathered crowd, but a trembling, nervous wreck behind the curtains. And as his heart had iced over, permanently, he feared, when his mother slapped him in the blooming flowers of her insanity. And as his long, pale fingers had fluttered over the keys as he had composed his first piece, his four-year-old legs pushing on recycled bike pedals fixed to metal rods and taped messily to the piano pedals. And as his eyes had fallen upon the first girl he found to be pretty. And as he had shaken in his bed at night, the victim of a nightmare. And as he had grown, very slowly drifting away from Butler as he found love in his life, and happiness in Holly, and a new way to live outside of books and computers and the memories of Albert Einstein and Keats.

That raven-feather hair, always shiny in the half-light, that pale, sometimes sickly skin, those eyes, always bright and clear no matter what his emotion was, the long toes that cracked when he walked barefoot, the prominent ribs, sharp regardless of what he was forced to eat, the birthmark on his left hipbone, the lips, swollen when bitten on out of frustration, the ever-present circles under the eyes, the cool breath that made his chest rise and fall… God, it was gone. He was gone. Artemis Fowl, selfish, snappy, brilliant, scheming, alienated, irritable, unforgettable Artemis Fowl was gone.

Juliet stood by the windows, her knees creaking and her legs aching terribly as, limp in her right hand, lay a dormant cell phone. She stared out the fogged windows at the blurred lights of the city outside, knowing that across the world it was two in the morning. That Angeline Fowl was wrapped in her husband's arms, snuggling together in the center of their huge king-sized bed, Artemis Fowl Sr. snoring lightly due to the swollen sinuses that always hit him in this season. That one floor up and nine rooms over, Myles dreamed of physics, and across the hall, Beckett dreamed of a girl named Caleigh. That peace had finally fallen over the Fowls, and that that peace could be shattered in a moment by one phone call.

_Would I want to know?_ she thought, not blinking as the light of the city shot straight into her eyes, shrinking her pupils until they were nothing but specks. _If Dom was killed, would I want to be told?_ Without a second thought, Juliet turned on her heel, marching out of her brother's living room and to the front door, which she wrenched open, making her way down the dark hallway of their building to the staircase. Her fingers pressed the numbers, her eyes cast upward instead of at the phone, for she knew it by heart.

As Juliet Butler made her way to the roof, she realized her hands were shaking as the first ring through the phone reached her ears.

* * *

Angeline Fowl's head shot up in reflexive shock as the phone rang on her bedside table. Beside her, her husband, nothing more than a lump in the covers, grunted and rolled over. Her sleepy eyes glared reproachfully at the shape of his body under the comforter, as if trying to push him into action without words, before her mind registered that it was just after two o'clock. She yawned, figuring that no one would be calling at this time of night without importance, and reached her hand as far as she could, the tips of her fingers brushing the edge of the table. She sighed and scooted out of the warm pocket her body had made in the covers, wincing as the cold sheets brushed her toes.

"Hello?"

The past year had not been kind to Angeline. Her eyes were outlined by crow's feet, her mouth pushed a little down in the corners, her body thin and a bit wasted away. She couldn't know that, at that moment, across the sea, a woman stood connected to her, standing on the raised edge of a roof, one hand in her pocket, the other clutching the phone like a strange, dangerous lifeline, her eyes tracing the brown glow that the streetlights put into the night sky.

For a moment, there was only the crackling sound of wind in the speaker, than then the caller spoke. "Angeline."

She frowned, pushing herself up a little more, her mind fighting to push out of the fog of sleep. "Who is this?"

There was nothing on the line but wind. Angeline repeated her question, and the unmistakable sound of a sigh rattled the speakers.

"I… please, Mrs. Fowl, forgive me. And Butler as well." Angeline felt the mist surrounding her mind shift quickly out of the way as the voice registered in her brain, marred by the hitching sound of crying.

"Darling," Artemis Senior groaned from the bed. "Hang up. Tell them they can wait until morning."

"Juliet," Angeline whispered. "You survived the crash. Where are you? Where's Artemis? And Butler? Why has it taken so long to come in contact?"

Artemis Senior's head had risen from the pillows and his frighteningly bright blue eyes nearly crackled with sudden energy at the sound of his son's name. His hand reached out under the covers to lay upon his wife's back, and she reached behind herself and took it, holding his fingers tightly as she listening to the crying on the other end of the line.

"We should have been with him," Juliet whispered, barely audible through her uneven breathing and the wind blowing into the speaker. "It was a risk to have us all together but he wouldn't… we could have stopped it if we had been there."

"What happened?" Angeline felt ice creeping into her body at the tips over her fingers and toes, the hope at hearing Juliet's voice smashed by hearing these vague bitter statements. "What's going on? Where is my son?"

"Angeline," Artemis Senior whispered.

"He's dead," Juliet said, loud enough to carry out of the phone and into the ears of both parents. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, he was shot and he died this morning, I could have stopped it, I could have saved him if I'd been there…" Far away, on the rooftop, Juliet knelt down on the edge of the roof, the tears sliding down the peeling nose mold and dripping far below to the sidewalk, mixing in with the rain that was still slowly sprinkling down.

In Ireland, Angeline dropped the phone and fell into her husband's arms, which were shaking. Until now, there had always been a small spark of hope in their minds that the whole thing would have been a fluke like the last time, and one day Artemis would walk, ragged and bruised but alive, into the foyer and call out "I'm home." There was always that small chance. Always that hope.

But now there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

The dial tone hit as far away, the thrown cell phone hit the pavement from ten stories above the ground, the shards flying away from the main body as the world began to slow down as it reached its end.

* * *

The phone rang, shattering the cocoon of dead in the city of life. Holly's head shot up and burned a grief-crazed hole in the wall above the phone, the logical side of her mind trying to pull the emotional side out of the pit of despair and loss that she was sinking into. Butler didn't react at all, the phone beeping shrilly but the sound bouncing off of him until an achingly and infuriatingly familiar voice came over his answering machine.

"Holly, please answer the phone," Foaly said quietly.

Holly stood up blindingly fast as Butler's head turned a bit, her hand ripping the phone out of the holder, her eyes flashing furiously as she pressed the on button and threw the phone as hard as she could against the wall facing her, pieces of the plastic casing flying off.

"Holly —"

"Why the _hell _are you calling me, you infernal centaur?" Holly screeched. "Are you here to gloat? To laugh and tell me you found us? Are you _happy_, you son of a _bitch_? Are you finally caught us and got to me? Are you doing well with your stupid wife and your perfect job and your fat budget? Do you laugh at work because you caught me?"

"Holly, no, please —"

"Fuck you!" she screamed, her throat emitting a raw, painful sound that could vaguely match with her voice.

"Holly, he wasn't supposed to kill him!" Foaly yelled over her. "He wasn't supposed to kill anyone! He wasn't even supposed to be sent! No one was supposed to die! Look, I knew from the beginning that you hadn't done it! Mulch knew you hadn't done it! Trouble launched a full investigation once you escaped and after three months _he_ knew you hadn't done it! We found evidence, Holly, that saved you, and we've been trying to find you and Artemis all this time. Neither the LEP, nor I, nor Trouble, sent Kong, but —"

"Don't," Holly warned, her voice shaking with fury. "Don't even make excuses. He's dead. Your man killed him."

"Listen to what I just said, Holly. It was not the LEP," Foaly replied, his voice shaking as well. "We would not do that, Holly. Trouble froze the case on you and took a new lead. We knew it wasn't you once we found the real man, but he is such a rich bastard that the Council dropped charges on him once he had replenished the damn hostage fund."

Holly's breathing was ragged, deafening in the dark room, as she just glared toward the battered phone.

Foaly sighed, the sound rattling through the speaker.

"Do you remember Max Green, Holly?"

Her breathing stopped.

"_The reason I first got recruited by the LEP was because I was beating the crap out of Max Green in the hallways. He always had a bit of a crush on me, but he was a creep. He went the LEP route too, Recon. But I rose in the ranks a lot faster than him."_

"It was Max, Holly. He killed the Fronds and set you up."

No. No, no, it wasn't true, it was impossible.

"_Lust was all it was, really. He was into easy girls, and I fell right into his trap. After a while, I became suspicious. Other girls told me things, and... well, I came to realize just how dumb I had been. Max... was something I regret."_

Foaly sighed again. The room was thick with tension.

"Max is the reason Artemis is dead."

* * *

"_Hey, Holls."_

_Holly Short looked up from her locker, a digi-pen sticking out of her teeth, her long hair pulled back in a high ponytail. She nodded curtly to him, turning back to the problem at hand; finding her water quality testing kit in the explosion inside her piece of the reinforced polycarbonate that made up the school's student storage. _

"_What are you up to? Three more minutes and you'll be late to first period."_

_Holly ripped the pen out of her teeth, sending a scathing glare his direction. "I'm busy, Max. Piss off."_

"_Ouch. Having a magic crash today?"_

"_No," she lied, and made up an excuse that wasn't inaccurate. "I'm just going to fail the microbiology exam because I can't find my damn water quality testing kit."_

_He knelt down by her; he was a sturdy elf, his hazel eyes always sparkling with the kind of mischief that belonged to a sprite. "Your hair looks nice today." He brushed a stray strand out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. Holly felt her cheeks grow hot, despite her anger._

"_Thanks."_

"_You want to go out tonight?"_

_She looked up at him, her hands buried in the mountain of stuff in her locker, her lips pursed. "Can't, I'm grounded. Mom just about killed me last night when you brought me home late."_

"_Aw, it was just thirty minutes, Holls. Your mom's strict as hell."_

"_My mom's a police officer, in case you've forgotten." She stood, abandoning the search and resigning herself to a failed exam. "And she's not so strict. Your buddy Quake got home just five minutes late and he got the piss lectured out of him, right?"_

"_Yeah, lectured, not grounded."_

"_Some people are disciplined, unlike some rich bastards I know." Holly elbowed him in the side, and he yanked back on her ponytail._

"_Hey, now, I'm disciplined."_

"_Yeah, by your father who gave you contraceptive packets when you were just thirty-four."_

"_And that wasn't so long ago now, was it? He was just teaching me to be responsible, Holls. Nothing wrong about that. I can't go around sleeping with girls with no way to... you know. Stop things."_

_Holly clenched her jaw, stopping smack in the middle of the fast-emptying hallway. Max, taking a few more steps before realizing that she had fallen behind him, stopped as well and turned back, one eyebrow quirked upward. "Holls?"_

"_That's it, Max," she said softly, her voice possessing a dangerous feminine quality that would start to emerge more and more as the years went by. _

"_C'mon, babe. What's up?"_

"_We're not having sex again, Max," she said, a little louder, and the few students left in the hallways turned to stare. "I know you slept with Ari last weekend and Purna the weekend before." Her eyes flashed. "And don't even get me started on the homemade porn videos that Foaly found in your computer."_

_Max's face was frozen in a half smile. "Foaly… the centaur, the senior? He hacked into my computer?"_

"_You and Lili Frond put on quite a show," she said. "She's a good person, Lili, but she's a whore, and you get together, what, every Wednesday? Just to make hot sex videos in your bedroom."_

"_You… you watched… how do you know all this? These are all lies, Holly, you can't believe… I mean, not about Lili, and I'm sorry about that, honest, but about Ari and Purna, that's a damn lie." Max's voice was a little panicked, but his face remained calm._

"_Purna told me about the birthmark on the inside of your right thigh!" Holly yelled, getting right in his face, the bell ringing and counting them late to class. "Ari said — correctly — that your cowlick got tangled around her fingers when she ran her hands through your hair! You're a sick whore, Max Green!" She slapped him, not noticing the LEP officers and the principal walk around the corner as Max's head snapped back and he gasped loudly in shock. Holly turned on her heel and walked the other way, her eyes slightly glazed with furious tears._

"_You're right, bitch!" Max yelled after her. "You're nothing but a slut! A fucking slut! There are always other —"_

_His speech was cut off as Holly's fist slammed into his jaw, knocking him to the floor as she jumped on top of him, punching his face and neck, the toes of her boots kicking into his groin and legs, and he yelled, trying to fight back, but he was a rich, spoiled young elf who had no experience with street fighting, and soon the blood was flying and blue sparks were flashing all around his body._

_Holly felt herself grabbed by the shoulders and was yanked off of her ex-boyfriend, looking up into the stern and somewhat sparkling eyes of one Commander Julius Root._

"_What the hell!" Max bawled, furiously wiping blood off of his face. "What the hell is wrong with you?"_

"_I am not a slut, you douche bag!" Holly howled at him, ignoring the officers behind her. "You're just a disrespectful, lying, cheating bastard who takes advantage of girls who are honestly blind enough to love you!"_

_"All right, all right, let's end this," came a gruff voice from behind her, and the grip on her shoulders was released a bit. "Mr. Pace, could you lead us to your office?" Julius Root wheeled Holly around and began to walk away with her, ignoring the blood-covered elf in the hallway. Holly seethed as they turned the corner, leaving Max, whimpering, behind with the other officers, as the Root wiped the male elf's blood off of her. _

_Once in the office, Root closed the door and eyed her thoughtfully. "Listen, girlie," he said softly. "I'm not much for female officers, but you fight well. You'll still get pinned for school violence, but I thought I'd ask... What do you think of a summer training internship?"

* * *

_

"Butler." Holly's voice was loud in the soft quiet of the room, even though she was speaking in a dangerously soft tone. "How many bullets does the gun have left?"

He looked up slowly, his eyes lingering on things; the corner of carpet by the wall, the couch, the window, and then finally Holly. "The one you shot?" he asked dully, the first words he had spoken since Artemis had died. "Seven. It's a .357 Magnum." His eyes drooped in the corners, and despite the months of stress and the years of hardship, he was only now beginning to look his age. "Why?"

She didn't answer, turning away from him and casting a deep, ruthless glare toward Foaly's image on the television. "Good. Seven is all I need."

"Don't hurt yourself, Holly, please." Foaly's fingers audibly tapped the desk from off-screen. "Just… come home."

"How can I call that place a home anymore?" Holly snapped. "Every single creature under the world wanted me dead, and now you want me to go back and _live_ there again? Are you fucking _insane_?"

"Holly –"

"I need access to Max's office," she said coldly, her eyes icing over again. "And I need a private shuttle home. And I need LEP defenses down." Her fingers brushed over the cold metal lying on the table, gleaming innocently in the cheap fluorescent lights. "Do it, Foaly."

"Holly, listen –"

"Max Green was still in love with me, wasn't he?" she interrupted, refusing to look at the screen anymore. "No, I take it back. He was in lust. He was jealous. If he was in love, he wouldn't have framed me for murder in order to take my job." She snorted. "All this over a fucking _job_. And then he got even more envious because Artemis was the lucky bastard who got me first." Her fingers closed over the barrel of the gun, squeezing so tightly that she was almost surprised that the metal didn't bend in. "Don't say that he doesn't deserve what's coming to him, Foaly."

"Holly…" But Foaly's voice was meeker and less argumentative than it had been before. "Holly, think of the complications this will make."

"My life is over!" Holly shouted, snatching the gun and hurling it at the screen; it shattered in the upper corner, marring Foaly's shocked face with cracks and light. "The man I love is dead, and any friends I have left are broken! My race hates me for being wrongly accused of murdering six people and you've found me!" She sank to the floor, shaking as furious tears tracked over her cheeks, her teeth ripping into her lips until they bled. Butler's eyes had closed, his face upturned toward the ceiling. Foaly was silenced.

It was like a heartbeat was pulsing in the room, coursing through all of their bodies, pounding through their heads, pushing through their brains and muscles. It was an odd sort of stiff stillness that overtook them all, as if their bones were drying into casts of themselves, and their veins slowly shriveling up until they were shells. Holly's angry tears slowly dried up, and Butler's eyes opened halfway and stared straight into the sun out of the window, shining like a dead cat's. Foaly was respectfully quiet until the door to the apartment opened and Juliet trudged in.

"They know," she muttered, snatching a kettle off of the counter and flipping the faucet on. The kettle made a deep metallic hiss as the water hit the bottom and began to fill it. "I think I woke them up… was it right?"

"To tell them?" Butler said hoarsely. "Absolutely. _I _would want to know if I were in that position."

"But they've thought he was dead for over a year." Juliet waited a moment more and turned off the water, turning the knob on the stove until the clicking of the igniter stopped and blue gas flames flicked out of the holes. "It's like he died all over again, isn't it?" Her voice cracked at the end.

"A parent would always want to know the truth about what happened to their child."

"You weren't his father, Dom."

Butler's eyes flashed. "He was a son to me."

"Don't pretend he wasn't more."

"_Juliet._"

Juliet stepped back, her eyes widening a little bit at his tone. "Dom," she snapped.

"Don't," he growled, curling up into himself into a way Holly had never seen before, and had never expected to see on Butler. Vulnerability curled out of the man like tendrils. "Artemis knew he was like my own child. He knew about Madeleine. He knew _everything_."

"You fell in love with him, Dom," Juliet said. "I watched it over the years. I saw the change in you whenever he would walk into the room. You were happy around him."

Butler gritted his teeth; a tear slid down his nose, and Juliet fell silent as his chest hitched mutely. "No," he whispered between his quiet sobs. "No. I fell in love with his soul, but not in love with him. And he knew that." His fingers curled into fists, and he slumped over his knees. "He _knew _that."

A whistle sounded in the kitchen, and slowly grew into a screech. Juliet didn't move to take the boiling water off of the stove, her gaze fixed on her older brother as the muscles on his back stiffened at the sound, reminded of the years and years that he had made Artemis's tea, dipping in the Earl Grey tea bags for six full minutes, letting the tea steep until it was more bitter than even Butler could stand, but perfect for Artemis. And then slicing lemons into fourths and placing them symmetrically on the saucer and carrying it up to him, the cup and saucer in one hand, the teapot in the other. Clear, gorgeous white china rimmed with pure gold… Artemis had loved that tea set.

Wordlessly, Butler rose to his feet and slowly crossed into the room to the whining teakettle, causing his sister to flinch a little as he passed. He calmly took the kettle off the burner, leaving the flames on, and took it back into the living room, the whine slowly fading, but not before he hurled it through the window with every ounce of strength he had left in his body, glass shattering all over the carpet. Finally, the sound of the kettle faded as the metal-encased boiling water hurtled toward the sidewalk. Silence was all that was left.

Holly rose to her feet and walked over to the television, yanking the gun out of the hole she had made in the screen. Silently, she tucked the gun in her coat pocket and left the apartment. She plodded slowly down the stairwell, the weapon hidden in her pocket, and then reached the ground level, her pace picking up to the New York norm as she strode past the shattered glass and dented kettle leaking steaming water onto the cold ground. Her feet carried her over sidewalks and intersections, over concrete and metal and asphalt and weeds. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for; her sense of place had been knocked off kilter from the moment the heart monitor had hit a steady tone. Everything was muted. Everything was slow.

She ran into someone, looking up past their face to where she was. Some obscure street, quiet compared to the rest of the city. The man she had run into cursed and pushed past her, but Holly stood staring at the store in front of her: _Troubadour Paints. _And a dull poster in the window: _Paint all Colors of the Rainbow!_

The rainbow.

Red.

Orange.

Yellow.

Green.

Blue.

Indigo.

Violet.

Seven colors.

Seven people.

Seven bullets.

Somewhere, deep below her, Max Green was sitting at a desk, comfortable, smug, and content with life. Happy with his promotion. Happy with his wealth. Happy with his luck. Happy with his whores, with his success, with his murders. Happy to the point of madness, a madness that Holly wanted nothing more than to stomp out with every ounce of hate, anger, sadness, and love left in her shell of a body.

Her path was clear and everything was illuminated as half the perfect world finally slipped out of the hole where Holly's heart had been, whispering a small goodbye before slithering up into the sky to a place where things could live and just be.

Soon, it would be over.

* * *

**Quick note — I got real, bona fide critique in one of my reviews — I believe it was actually review number 200, but I can't be sure — and it was fantastic. If you have anything you did not like, other than being pissed off at me for killing off Artemis (so many anger PMs...), PLEASE do not hesitate to tell me. I want to know how to make my writing better.**


	20. Epilogue

**CONTENT: violence, language

* * *

**

Epilogue: The Perfect World**  
**

The interior of the pod was washed with a clear blue as it sped hundreds of miles into the earth. Periodically the lights and screens would flicker, the continual hum of the vehicle jerking a bit as it shot through the underground tunnels, the craft groaning in protest as the speed limit was pushed, the paint melting away and smoking as it was flung into darkness.

But Holly wasn't paying attention to her driving.

Her face was bleached by the blue light filling the cabin, expressionless but somehow deadly at the same time. She could faintly see her reflection in one of the screens. Juliet had done her job well.

Where there may have been a spider-like wrinkle or a freckle or a small blemish, there was now smooth, cream-like skin. Her eyes, heterochromatic in their natural state, were intense even without the smoky makeup; the dark silvery colors tinged an entrancing green that was horribly washed out by the light. Holly's hair had been dyed back to its original fiery red, and though Juliet had offered to cut it for her, she had taken the first pair of scissors she could get her hands on and hacked away until it was back to something that half-resembled her crew cut, mixed with an almost feline, feminine style that swept along her jaw.

She had the pod going as fast as it could without exploding, watching apathetically as the sides glowed with the heat of her speed, turning a dull red, and then orange. The temperature regulators fought for control in the cabin, but it was slowly heating up nonetheless.

The pod flew along undetected.

* * *

It was raining in Ireland.

The two siblings stood side-by-side at the gates, staring mournfully through the splendid wrought-iron toward the faraway manor. Behind those ivy-coated walls, the Fowl family was grieving.

"Are you ready?" Juliet asked her brother softly, peering up past her hood, through the drizzle, high up toward Butler's stone-fixed face. He did not reply, and reached for the keypad by the gate.

Once inside the grounds, they began the long walk in, their feet crunching on the gravel of the drive and the pitter patter of the rain on their shoulders the only sounds in the vast emptiness of the Fowl estate. The house loomed over them too soon.

They stopped in front of the huge oak doors, staring up at the ancient water-soaked wood in respectful, fearful silence, their shoulders squared. This was business. This was responsibility. This was the determination that had carried the Butler legacy for centuries beside the Fowl family.

Juliet raised a shaking hand to knock.

* * *

"I've blocked all LEP weapons and communications," Foaly had said. "That's all I'll do for you, Holly. I don't support what you're about to do."

"No," she replied, staring straight ahead as Juliet carefully painted her new face. Her newly cut and dyed hair was pulled back, tucked behind her ears. "I need diversion once I get into the building."

"Holly, please, consider what you're –"

"Don't push me, Foaly."

He hesitated, and then typed something audibly. "When you enter the building I'll trigger LEP defense smoke bombs. That's all, you hear me? Nothing else."

"Fine."

"Holly…" Foaly's voice was quiet, sad in a sort of aching way that was wasted on his friend. "They'll kill you for this, you know. You've escaped once. They won't want to take that chance again."

Holly's stare cooled, her eyes icing over. "I know."

"I'll miss you."

"I know."

He sighed into his microphone. "I just… I'm sorry. That this all happened. I wish… that things could have been better."

"Holly." Juliet was speaking softly, so that Foaly couldn't hear. "May I ask you something?"

She nodded.

"Artemis... was like my baby brother. And it hurt to watch him grow up and change, but he was happy." She swallowed, drawing lines in even strokes over Holly's eyelids. "And now he's gone, and... I just..."

"I know."

"Are you sure you're just doing this to avenge him?"

"I know I'm not," Holly said cooly. "I'm doing this for the both of us. Don't protest, Juliet."

"I'm not, Holly. Believe me."

"Good."

Juliet put down her make-up brush, staring at Holly sadly. "You ready?"

Holly blinked rapidly a few times, allowing herself to get used to the mascara coating her lashes.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

* * *

The man reading Latin over the hole in the ground meant nothing.

His brow pulsed with fake emotion, as if Artemis's cold body in the coffin behind him actually meant something. It was Fowl tradition to bury their dead, but Butler knew that his charge would never have wanted to be stuffed in a box until he decayed.

Beside him, the Fowl family stood stoic. Fowls did not cry at funerals. They kept up appearances; any time a member of the family was killed by any given Mafia, or found dead in a ditch, or assassinated or ended by some disease, they stood statue-like at the top of the hill crowning the most prestigious Irish cemetery. There was time for crying later, once they were alone and no one could see them.

On his other side was Juliet. She refused to watch the proceedings, staring off into the distance instead. Her fingers tapped her knees steadily as she looked out over the Irish countryside, thinking her own thoughts. She was young. Eventually, this would all fade a bit and she could go back to living a normal life.

But Butler would never forget.

The cold, bitter December wind whipped the top of the hillside, carrying the pastor's voice over the crowd gathered for a man they had never really known. "_Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace._ Amen."

* * *

There were seven bullets in the magazine packed into Butler's gun. She had painstakingly dyed each one a separate color and shoved them into the gun at random, except for the last one. The current shooting order of the magazine was green, orange, red, indigo, yellow, purple, and lastly blue. Green for Sloane, her wisdom with the trees dampened by age, orange for Hans, his pride in his family and his legacy shining like fire, red for Lili, her aura bright and radiant, welcome wherever it was found, indigo for Hiro, his strength passed from generation to generation, yellow for the sweet child Micah, who, with her naturally diplomatic ways, was such a great expectation for government, and purple for Sage, pregnant with her second child, who strived so hard for peace and prosperity for the greater population.

The last bullet was blue for Artemis.

Haven was getting close.

Holly's eyes were locked, narrow and dangerous, on the readouts.

Max Green was going to die today.

* * *

"I'm here to arrest you."

Trouble Kelp's voice rang through the Ops booth. Foaly stopped his typing, resting his fingers on the keyboard. "How long will I be in for?"

Trouble put his hands in his pockets, looking up at Foaly with tired eyes. Those eyes had once been sparkling and youthful. Now they were flat and carried deep bags underneath. "Depends. If you get convicted of assisting murder, you could be in for 400 years."

Foaly closed his eyes. "I see."

"I'll testify for you," he offered. "I know the whole story."

"Mm."

"I've got men outside. But I don't think you're going to resist arrest. Am I right?"

"Do you mind if I call my wife first?"

"You can call her from your prison cell."

"I'd like to try and tell her not to set my place for dinner." Foaly's attempt at humor fell flat.

"Let's go, Foaly."

He rose from his chair, casting one last sad look around the office. "Hope you find someone who you can trust."

"Me too."

Foaly held out his hands, allowing Trouble to cuff him, and then looked him right in the eye. "I hope you know that she was a great woman. Max was the bastard who ruined everything."

"I know, Foaly. I know."

Trouble clapped him half-heartedly on the shoulder and led him out of the Ops Booth for the last time.

* * *

Holly stepped out of the shuttle, looking, almost bored, out over the station. They were frozen in shock, staring at her with wide eyes. She had long since begun to shut down her senses, losing feeling and sound. She was recognized.

Foaly hadn't bothered to mention whether or not her name had been cleared to the public, but she supposed it didn't matter, because either way they were pointing useless guns at her. She knew she looked absolutely insane to them, and maybe she was. Maybe… maybe her time was up.

A particularly brave young officer stepped in front of her, her face held stoic, but her hands shaking just enough for Holly to notice. She stopped right in front of this elf, meeting her hazel eyes.

_You're just like I was, aren't you?_

"I suggest you move," Holly said, her voice silky smooth, persuading even without her _mesmer_.

The elf squared her chin. "No."

"If you don't, I'll shoot you," Holly murmured, flipping another gun out of her belt. This one wasn't loaded, but the officer didn't need to know that. "And what use would you be to Haven once I just stepped right over your dead body?"

The elf's resolve wavered, and Holly could see the bitter wish for a working Neutrino.

"You're no better than Opal Koboi," the officer said. "You're out for revenge, just like she was. Did you think of that, Short?"

Frond, did everyone know her story? Holly was distracted by this as the officer made a leap for her, her head knocking the breath out of Holly's body. It took a moment, but Holly was able to get the other elf in a headlock, the loaded gun held in the restraining hand and the unloaded gun pressed to her temple. The officer stiffened.

"You're strong," Holly said, knowing that all the eyes in the shuttle port were on her. "You're like I was." She threw the elf to the ground, tucking the unloaded gun back into her belt and resuming her methodic walking toward the LEP building. "Don't throw it away, kid."

She felt the astonished gazes on her back, watching her leave but not daring to stop her. To them, she was just like a murder, just like Max, but to Holly, it was different.

Holly didn't kill innocents.

* * *

As a baby, Trouble Kelp had rarely cried.

His office was dim. There was a squat glass filled with amber in front of him, resting peacefully on the faux-wood of his desk. He wasn't supposed to have alcohol on duty, but no one had dared to complain.

The Commander sighed through his nose, slowly swirling the ice in his cup around and around and around the rim of the glass. The funeral had been today. The LEP was responsible for funding the services of its veterans, even if their veterans had died in an act of crime.

The march through the city had been slow and solemn, two traditional recycling coffins carried on the shoulders of the LEP generals. One coffin had been revered and cried for. The other had been spat at and disdained upon.

He ground the bridge of his nose between his fingertips. If only they had known the real story.

When he had heard she was in the building, he had run as fast as he could toward the scene, thinking that maybe he could talk some sense into her. But the moment he had seen those eyes, he knew she was too far gone to care.

If only he had given into that reasonable doubt in his mind way back at the beginning. Maybe it would have all been okay.

"_You don't even deserve death, but it's the best we've got to dish out at you."_

But he had lied, hadn't he? He had fucking _lied_, and now she had gotten that punishment that she hadn't deserved.

For the first time since infancy, Trouble Kelp put his head in his hands and cried like a child.

* * *

"Butler?"

The old man looked up from the vegetables he had been chopping to notice the twenty-year-old Fowl heir standing uncomfortably in the doorway. Myles had grown more into his brother than Butler would have preferred.

"May I ask you something?"

"Of course," Butler rumbled, placing his knife wearily on the cutting board.

Myles brought himself to stand next to his companion, his brow creased in worry. "Was my elder brother… _sane_, do you know?" He glanced up and caught the expression working its way over Butler's face and hastily tried to explain. "It's just… not that I'm asking if he were stark raving mad. Just a little… eccentric."

"Who isn't, these days?" Butler sighed, attempting to return to his chopping.

"I found his diary."

Butler felt his old joints stiffen against his will, clueing Myles in that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Butler, in it… he regularly talked…" Myles made a small sound of disbelief. "He talked about _fairies_. And not like the normal, fairy-tale kind. It sounded like he took the time to create this whole little world, where these beings were amazingly technologically advanced, and they lived hundreds of miles under the surface of the earth."

Butler didn't answer.

"I've never been told how Artemis died, Butler," Myles began once he realized Butler was not going to comment. "And I know it's an extremely difficult subject for you – I mean, my god, the two of you were practically bonded to each other – but I am his brother. Don't you think I have the right to know?"

"No," Butler replied. "I don't." He turned, taking in Myles surprised expression, and frowned, deep lines webbing across his forehead. "I think you should forget about him, and forget all you read in his diary. After all, it's just the eccentricities of Artemis Fowl, right?"

Myles blinked. "All right, if you think so."

"I do."

"I will, then." He turned and walked slowly out of the kitchen, and then paused in the doorway. "I'm sorry, Butler."

* * *

Her stilettos were clicking on the pavement.

Haven had its share of weirdos, and that included prostitutes. Surely she looked like one right now. It was what she had been going for when she had commanded Juliet to dress her up. Some people paid her no mind. Others looked her up and down, deciding whether to approach or not. Only a select few noticed the Magnum held comfortably at her side.

Her previous workplace loomed in front of her. They couldn't stop her. They would never even know she was coming.

Every step brought her closer. Every little step pulled Max Green a little bit closer to death.

* * *

The crime scene was buzzing.

It was messy, of course; six dead bodies slashed all over the house, blood dripping from the walls, spreading grotesquely all over the floor. Vinyáya, the hardened officer that she was, had been asked to head the investigation, and currently had all of her available subordinates scouring the scene.

She half-sat on the dining room table as the officers rushed around her, busy with reports and information and search. A lit fungus cigar dangled between her fingers, a habit picked up from her previous superior officer. Vinyáya was by no means old, but her forehead was riddled with lines.

"Sir?"

She looked around; a young techie had disturbed her harried contemplation.

"What is it?"

"We've found a plethora of DNA evidence, sir. Investigation is running through the machine as we speak, but they already suspect it to be an elf."

Vinyáya stubbed her cigar out on an unfortunate nearby helmet. "Why's that, corporal?"

"The hair we found, sir. It's red."

"How much did you find, corporal?"

"Hair, fingerprints, a slice of fingernail. We've got a unit testing blood for further identification."

Vinyáya tapped her lips, frowning. "No one smart enough to murder the Frond family would leave that much evidence." Her eyes narrowed. "That's... odd."

"Sir?"

She started a bit. "I wasn't talking to you, corporal. You're dismissed." The young pixie nodded, saluted, and turned on his heel to walk away.

* * *

It took a moment for anyone inside the LEP building to even notice her as she strolled easily through the doors. With their communications down, they were concentrating on their wiring problems, and not even noticing Holly as she strode past the registration desks and the majestic statue of a strong, stereotypical male elf in the center of the atrium. But one sprite saw Holly after nearly twenty seconds, and then saw the gun. Her scream rattled Holly's skull.

_Bang_, she thought cooly.

In a normal circumstance like this, the smoke bombs would go off and the LEP personnel would undergo standard, rehearsed evacuation procedures. However, these were not normal circumstances, and no one was even remotely prepared for the explosions as the smoke bombs detonated, sending a few officers flying, shielding Holly in a cloud of ashy destruction. She it took her only seconds to clear the atrium and get into an elevator.

Foaly would have to get working on a new system right away. This was way too easy.

* * *

"I want him to want me before I kill him."

Juliet raised an eyebrow, but did not question. It had only taken her an hour to retrieve what remained of her Full Monty from storage and get it back to Butler's apartment. Now the contents of the trunks were spread over the living room; cosmetics, wigs, outfits of every kind, just waiting to be taken.

Juliet dug through her extensive collection of compressed powder, frown lines creasing around her tired eyes and mouth. "How badly to you want him to want you?"

Holly raised an eyebrow, staring straight ahead. "Well, let me ask you. Is it possible to get a guy to cream his pants when he knows you're going to kill him?"

Juliet had a trace of a rueful smile on her face as she scrounged through the trunk behind her. After a moment she pulled out a burgundy leather corset, eyeing it thoughtfully.

"Let me see what I can do."

* * *

When she burst into Max's office, she got just the reaction she wanted. He jumped, completely taken unawares, and his eyes roved up and down her body before he noticed the gun and paled.

"Oh, gods," he breathed. "Oh, gods, Holly, please."

"You don't even deserve this, you son of a bitch," she whispered, and pulled the trigger for the first time.

And the first of the seven bullets spun out, straight toward Max's waiting chest.

* * *

The small boy knelt in front of the headstone, tilting his head as he struggled to read the engraved words.

"Mama!" he called. His mother, farther down the hill, looked up, squinting in the glare.

"What is it, darling?"

"Who's this?"

She traipsed up through the long grasses, kneeling next to her son, and read the words. "Oh. My grandpa used to tell me about him," she mused softly.

"Who?" the boy asked.

"That's your great-great-uncle Artemis," she said, looking at the engraving thoughtfully. "He was your great-granddaddy's brother."

"Papa Myles?"

"Yes, dear." She stroked his hair. "He died when he was pretty young... I don't know too much about him, other than he was very smart."

"Like me?"

She smiled, letting him believe it. "Yes." She reached out and traced the dips in the stone that made up his name. "It's such a shame... I would have loved to meet him. He seemed like a good man." She looked up. "Charlie?"

But her little boy had already lost interest, rolling down the hill and giggling. She dutifully followed him, shaking her head with a smile and forgetting the headstone.

Artemis Fowl II was well and truly erased from human history.

* * *

It hadn't felt nearly as good as Holly had thought it would, but it was a good feeling nonetheless. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, lit on fire by the unexpected rush of lustful revenge that had consumed her. Though Max lay long dead on the floor, Holly raised the gun once more to lodge the final bullet into his skull.

The last, pure blue bullet.

This one was for Artemis.

* * *

"I want to forget," Juliet told Trouble, her eyes glued to the screen of the computer that once belonged to Artemis. "I want to forget all of this."

Trouble sighed, rubbing the bags under his eyes. "You can't be the only one. The rest of the family would have to as well. Butler could keep his, but if the family made any reference to Artemis at all, you would probably have a triggered reaction."

Juliet stared him down. "So you're saying no?" Her face was forceful, but her voice was fragile.

"Yes."

Juliet dropped her head into her hands. "But... God, I don't want to remember him dying, elf. I just want that image out of my head, because it won't go away." She peeked between her fingers, her eyes the perfect picture of anguish. "I just can't forget the look in his eyes."

"I know," Trouble replied. "I know."

* * *

The door was forced open before Holly could pull the trigger for the last time. A knee jammed into her back, sending her straight to the floor, and she watched in distress as the gun flew from her hand, bouncing off the carpet and landing an inch from the tips of her fingers.

"Hold her down!"

"Oh Gods, she's killed him."

"Get the Commander in here!"

The knee in her back jammed in deeper. "We're going to kill you slowly, Short," an unfamiliar, rancid voice hissed in her ear. "All we have to do is say it was an accident. Look what you've done to him."

"He deserved it," she snarled, and thrust her head back. She felt the officer's nose crunch on impact, and he let go with a grunt. Holly lunged forward, grabbing wildly for the gun. All she had to do was get one more shot into Max. Artemis's bullet was all that was left. Artemis had to get his revenge, and then they could do as they pleased.

In her attempt, her fingers hit the stock and the gun did nothing but spin in a slow circle until she was looking straight down the barrel. Holly cursed viciously, and even though hands were holding her down she tried once more to reach it.

"No!" came a voice; Trouble, her mind dimly recognized. Almost on instinct, her face turned up to his as her fingers closed around the gun. Their eyes met, and he saw the ferocious animal that had been released in Holly's body.

His hand closed over hers.

But Holly's finger was close enough to the trigger that when Trouble's firm grasp caused her grip to contract, there was a light click.

And then the loudest roar she had ever heard.

The last thing Holly saw was a flash of blue speeding toward her.

* * *

The bed was warm; she was home, the sounds of someone making breakfast gently pulsing through the door. Sunlight turned her eyelids a peachy color, but she didn't feel like opening her eyes yet. She felt too good. The sheets were smooth against her bare body, the pillow soft underneath her head, the fingers stroking her spine so gentle...

Wait, fingers?

Holly felt her eyes snap open to a creamy, seamless white chest, and jerked backward a bit. The fingers on her back held her close.

"Shh," came a soothing voice. Holly felt her stomach jerk. Artemis? Was this what happened before you died? Was this what replaced the light at the end of the tunnel? You got one moment of joy from your life?

"Relax, love," he whispered. "Stay here with me."

She let herself sink back into the sheets and peeked past Artemis's chest into the surrounding room, feeling a slight jolt of confusion. This wasn't how she remembered their bedroom in the apartment. This place was gauzy and beautiful, all cream and sweet earthy browns and greens, chiffon-like material floating in the soft breeze, not old with blue cracked paint on the walls. She looked back to the man she was cuddled against. When had Artemis's chest ever been so velvety white?

She felt his nose nuzzle her hair, and she tilted her chin back to look at him; Artemis grinned lazily at her, his face as smooth as though he were a newborn baby, beautiful and perfect.

He let her look for a moment and then pulled her back into a close embrace, their bodies twining together, every nook and cranny filled as he whispered:

"Welcome to your perfect world, Holly."

* * *

**Fin.**

**Well, kids, it's been fun. This was my first fanfic worth publishing, and it garnered a huge response, so thank you to everyone who review, and I give a standing ovation to those who reviewed with thought.**

**My next fic will not be published for several months, because I want it to be done before I begin publishing. It will come in two parts, one called Enigma, and the other called Legacy. Since school is finally out as of today, I should be able to get through this fic fairly quickly.  
**

**Between now and then, I have a small ficlet on stock that will probably be put up in a month or so. It's Artler, and will be under the M section — and NO, it's not a smut story... at least, not totally, anyway.**

**But for now, I bid you a goodbye, and a huuuuuuge thank you! This story has really been an incredible journey and an outlet for emotions when life took turns that kind of sucked. Thank you all who bared with me when I would go for months without updating. And if you're going to review this chapter, I would absolutely love it if you gave your opinion on the overall fic as well.**

**Cheers! Hopefully I will be writing to you all again soon.**

**Matt  
**


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